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I nod, slipping the jacket on over my tank top. It’s too big for me, but it feels comforting, and it smells like Finn. I resist the urge to bury my nose in the leather as I follow him out of the apartment building and down to where his bike is parked, taking the helmet he offers me.
“It’s not that far of a ride,” he says as he swings his leg over the bike, the engine growling in the warm late-spring air. “We’ll be there before you know it.”
It’s been a long time, but it all still feels familiar—the hum of the engine in the leather seat beneath me, the smell of hot metal and grease, the buttery feel of Finn’s jacket under my hands as I wrap my arms around his waist. I feel him tense ever so slightly, and I realize with a small flicker of regret that I didn’t ask him how he felt about this. He cares about me in ways that I’ve been trying to push away, I know that—now I’m sharing in something that for him, I suspect, is more than a little intimate. He wants me, and I’m not making this any easier on him.
“Hang on, lass,” Finn says, his voice a little huskier than before, and then we’re pulling out onto the road, my hair tickling my neck as the wind picks up around us, and I remember how much I used to love this.
It feels strange—like excitement and nostalgia and grief all wrapped up together. I don’t know how well I processed my feelings about losing Jamie—I just ran from them instead—I don’t know if this is how I’m supposed to finally face it all, but I don’t have that feeling of wanting to escape from this that I thought I would. Finnisn’tJamie—they’re two very different men—but the way he makes me feel reminds me of that time in my life, a time when I thought I’d finally gotten all of the things I hadn’t known to imagine for myself.
And if you start to imagine them with Finn, they can be taken away just as easily,I remind myself as Finn pulls up in front of the tall building that must house the Kings’ offices. “I half expected a clubhouse in the back of a bar,” I tell Finn teasingly as we get off of the motorcycle, and he raises an eyebrow at me.
“The Kings are the wealthiest organization in Chicago,” he says wryly. “Hardly a ‘back of the bar’ kind of group.”
“I see that.” The lobby we walk through could belong to any fancy corporation, all heavy wood and granite and leather. I glance around as Finn leads me to the elevator, and we step inside.
“Theo is kind enough,” Finn says as he presses the button for the top floor. “He has a reputation, but he’s a fair man, and a good one, in my opinion. He’s not going to force you to do anything that you don’t want to do.”
“I’d like to see any of them try.” I look at Finn, and I see a flicker of something that almost looks like pride in his expression.
“That’s my girl,” he says, almost offhandedly, but it feels anything but to me. Just hearing it makes something tighten and warm inside of me. I’m suddenly very aware of the small space of the elevator, of how easily Finn could push me up against the wall, how many floors there are between now and our destination.
It’s as if with one thought, the tension instantly rises in the space. Finn looks at me, his expression curious, and then I see that heat in my face as he, too, realizes what I’m thinking.
“Lass—” The word is almost a warning, spoken in that thickening Irish burr, letting me know just how close we are to something spilling over. We’ve spent a week in close proximity to each other, pretending that just two nights before I ended up at Finn’s apartment, we weren’t pressed up against each other in my room at the Ashen Rose, my hand working between us as he spilled all over my naked skin. As if we don’t both know now what the other person sounds like when they come, when the pleasure gets to be too much, as if we don’t each know how the other sounds when they finally give in and beg.
“Finn—” My voice is breathier than it should be. He turns towards me, a heat in those ocean blue eyes that makes me shiver, makes me forget everything except how it feels to run my hands over him, how badly I want to finally know what it feels like to kiss him. After all of that pain, I want all the gentleness he has to offer, in every way—for a moment, I think I’m going to get it…at least some of it.
He moves towards me, almost as if it’s outside of his own will, like I’m a magnet drawing him. I step back, and back again, feeling the wall behind me, and Finn follows, his hands landing well on either side of my head, as if he wants to ensure I have space even now. Space to escape, space to pull away, if that’s what I want.
I’m not so sure that it is anymore.
“Asha.” My name rasps over his tongue, and I have the sudden, wild urge to tell him myrealname. To hear him say it the same way, to replace all my memories of him saying my name with a different one, one that actually means something to me. A name that only one other person has spoken with lust and love and sweetness and heat all at once.
I think I could have that with Finn, if I let myself.
I look up at him. I could ask him to kiss me. His mouth looks warm and soft andsovery close. I could have almost everything I want, if I just ask him for it.
I feel sure that he wouldn’t say no.
He’s looking at my mouth like he’s starving, like all he wants is a taste. Like he’s been dreaming about this exact possibility, and suddenly, it’s in front of him. I part my lips to ask. To say the words that I’ve been biting back over and over—kiss me, Finn.
And then the elevator rocks to a stop, and I hear the chime that tells us we’ve reached our floor.
Finn jolts as if he’d been somewhere else, and he’s only just now reminded of where we are and what we’re doing here. He pulls back, a flush to his skin as he turns away, clearing his throat.
“We’re—we’re here.”
I’m just as flustered as he is. I can feel the burn in my cheeks, the warmth flooding me beneath the leather jacket, and I follow him out of the elevator, trying to think about the conversation ahead, and not the way what just happened made me feel.
I’m not entirely sure what I’d expected for the meeting, but I’m relieved to see when we walk in that it’s only Nikolai and Theo sitting there. Even though my stomach clenches with nerves seeing Nikolai, knowing I’m going to find out what he thinks of my being involved in all of this, I’m glad it’s only the four of us, and not a room full of strangers.
“I wish you would have talked to me about this when Finn came to you with it.” It’s the first thing out of Nikolai’s mouth, the moment I’ve slowly sat down in my chair. “I would have suggested you not take this offer.”
“Even to get the information you needed?” I look at him, and I realize with a hint of startlement that I’m not sure if I believe him.
“You’re not one of us, Asha. You’re not a part of this. I would have hoped your better judgment would have kept you away from all of this, despite what was clearly offered. But now you are a part of it, unfortunately. But now you’vebecomea part of it, despite what I would have hoped would be your better judgment.”
Something about his tone irritates me. “Finn laid it all out clearly for me. I made an informed choice, Nikolai.”
