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“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice husky. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—”
But she took one hand from his back and pressed a finger against the warm softness of his lips, silencing him. “Don’t be sorry,” she murmured. “I’m not.”
The look in his eyes shifted and changed like the currents in a deep sea. “I wasn’t supposed to do this again. It wasn’t part of the plan for tonight. It wasn’t part of the plan, full stop.”
Beth met his gaze, letting him see that she wasn’t disappointed about the way the evening was turning out, not at all. Some kind of tension had relaxed inside her, though she wasn’t sure why, and maybe it was only the effect of a rather incredible orgasm, but whatever it was she felt good and not in a forced way.
This felt genuine. This felt real.
“Well,” she said quietly, “maybe it should be.”
He studied her face for a long moment and what he was thinking she couldn’t tell. Sometimes she thought she knew what was going on in his head, and sometimes she had no idea. He could be hard to read.
“I wasn’t thinking of only having you moving in, Beth,” he said in a low voice.
“Oh?” She tried not to tense up, because she had a feeling she wasn’t going to like this. “What else were you thinking about?”
Finn’s dark eyes glittered. “I want you to marry me.”
***
He hadn’t meant to come out with it like that. He’d meant to feed her some good food, let her relax, then bring the subject up as more of an idea to consider instead of an order she had to follow.
But he hadn’t expected to be blindsided by his own feelings about her being here, in the same space he’d shared with Sheri. He’d genuinely thought it would be fine, because hell, it had been years since he’d lost Sheri, and everything else concerning Beth had felt so…easy and painless.
He hadn’t expected to want her quite so intensely or feel the weight of the secret she’d given him, her baby’s name. He’d been so short with her at the cabin, walking away without even an explanation, and yet she’d known what his problem had been anyway. Then had offered him a little piece of herself as a way to help. She was so generous with her caring that he’d been flooded with the most powerful desire for her.
He’d expected her to walk away or to change the subject, anything but notice his own grief and give him something to hold on to.
Then again, maybe he should have expected it. Beth seemed to be able to sense his emotions in a way that no one else was able to, not even his own brother.
He shouldn’t have pushed her down onto the couch though, or taken her the way he had. It was exactly the opposite of what he’d told himself he was going to do. Sleeping with her had not been part of the plan, like he’d told her.
It was just…she was so beautiful, and he was so hungry. And looking down at her now, he knew that any thoughts of having a platonic marriage had just been a lovely fairy story he’d told himself to make himself feel better.
He wasn’t going to be able to keep away from her. He didn’t want to.
Beth’s eyes went wide, the blush in her cheeks deepening. “Excuse me? You want to marry me?”
Finn held her gaze, unflinching. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot the past couple of days. Thinking about you and the baby and the future. I want our child to have my name and for both of you to have some legal protection. And…” He paused, letting her see how much this meant to him. “I want us to be a family.”
She swallowed and he could see the pulse at the base of her throat start to race. Her body beneath his was tense, so he shifted to give her some space. But the movement and the heat of her skin and the sweet musky scent of sex and apricots was making him hard again.
He wanted to kiss her, run his hands over her skin, taste more of her, spend time on this couch exploring her lovely body, exploring all the brightness and sunshine that was part of her.
“Marriage,” she repeated as if she didn’t know the meaning of the word. “You want to marry me.”
“Yes.” He pushed back one of her pale curls, tucking it behind her ear, letting his fingers linger on the softness of her skin. “I should have said something earlier, but I was kind of hoping to build up to it.”
“Finn, you barely know me. Also you could hardly stand for me to be in that little cabin out there just now. Your wife’s cabin.” There was no hesitation as she said the wordwife, no flinching. As if she was confronting him with it. “Yet you want to marry me and presumably have me live here with you in this house? How is that even going to work?”
Good question. How?
Tension gripped him, though he tried to ignore it since he didn’t want to ruin this moment by getting defensive.
But the problem was he didn’t know how to answer her question. He didn’t know how it was going to work. Because she wasn’t wrong. They did barely know each other. And he had reacted badly to her being in Sheri’s cabin. He wasn’t even sure why.
She wasn’t a threat to Sheri’s memory. She wasn’t trying to replace her. She and Sheri weren’t similar in any way. Hell, it had been five years. His wife’s presence shouldn’tstillbe weighing on him so heavily, right?
