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I swallow roughly and his hawklike eyes attack the movement like we’re two opposite ends of a magnet before they find their center.
“Now, are you going to be a good girl and come back willingly with me, or am I going to toss you over my shoulder and force you back?”
The callouses of his thumb begins to scrape from my neck to the base of my collarbone when I don’t answer right away. Searing my skin that grows more flush with every new swipe. He’s loving this, and don’t ask me how I know. I just do. He knows I can’t—won’t move.
It turns me on more that he finds this pleasurable, even if the situation’s fucked up.
Finn is the perfect mixture of resentment and hunger. Wild but cautious, he continues to assess me. His pupils dilate to the color of the night sky, and I choke down a moan.
His lids lower, drooping, heavy, and full as he leans into me. So starkly does he shift that it’s as if the restraint—this wall he has for me momentarily cracked right down its center.
The movement’s not a lot but enough that my heart kicks against the cage of my ribs. A new sense of emotion overshadows my desire.
Fear.
Pure, raw terror.
“Finn, don-don’t kiss me,” I stutter, overlooking everything else. Desperate, he can’t do this one thing.
The longer we stay like this, me trapped and him in control, the more his eyes become distant. Devastation coats his fascination, his thirst.
“I told you we aren’t friends, Hailey.” His grip tightens enough to make a point but not enough that I completely lose consciousness. “You don’t get to make demands or crack jokes, no matter how inaccurate they are. Not with me.”
My vision dances with spots of black, but I let him have his way because I know deep down he’d never hurt me and that’s the most screwed up part in all this.
I ruined him, completely destroyed him. Took a pointed knife and shoved it straight into his sternum, and still, I know he wouldn’t purposefully cause me harm. I see that now through shiny, lacquered eyes. Alcohol alerting me to the truth.
I can’t do it, can’t take it. I wheel on him, ripping myself free of his bruising grip with more power than I knew I had. My insides are on the verge of busting their way out of me as they yield to my strength.
I couldn’t tell you what’s worse. Seeing that he still wants me in the moment—even after all this time, after everything—or worse, knowing I want him as desperately back?
My head is spinning, spinning, spinning. The more space I put between us, the clearer the jaded fog that clouds my mind becomes.
Finn said we aren’t friends, but friends don’t have to look at each other the way he did to me just now to know when you’re craved. Lusted after.
“You have the distance between us to decide if you’re coming back walking or if I’m taking you back over my arm. Either way, you’re coming,” he breathes, nonnegotiable. His tone turns hoarser the longer he tries to conceal his disgust.
It takes me the entire walk back to figure out if the repulsion in his voice was for me or directed at his hatred for himself for being vulnerable. How quickly our bodies betrayed us.
By the time we reach Cole’s Lakehouse, I’m still undecided. What would either of us have allowed had his eyes not dropped, finding my mouth? Would his hatred for me have muted my pleas as I begged him for…what? I’m not sure.
I wouldn’t call what happened back there a spark because that’s overrated, a glint more accurate. Slowly like a single ember, it grew before fizzling out.
I didn’t create the monster, but I had a part in molding him. Finn never used to be this angry, not when it came to me…
“Don’t,” he warns when I attempt to continue following him inside the house.
It’s only after I watch him race up the stairs like he can’t get away from me fast enough that I realize all the lights are on. Everyone else must’ve beaten us back.
Outside, the air was thick, but here, alone, it’s airless.
Rory arrives from nothing, swooping an elbow to mine. “Hey, you’re back,” she cheers, oblivious to my confusion. “You ready to head back and figure out if we scared the wedding coordinator enough to stay on the payroll?”
I have to force my eyes away from the empty stairs. “Uh, sure.” I beam even though I’m worn out inside. “Mind if we hunt down some clean clothes first?”
I would very much appreciate not having to drive all the way back damp. The chaos of what happened between Finn and me out there is enough as is.
Rory’s head meets mine again after taking in the rumpled mess of sodded dirt around my ankles. “I think I have an extra pair of runners in my car you can borrow. That work?”
