CHAPTER 7

 

It was the light through the cottage window that woke Finian, bright in its morning glory, shining down on the angelic head of the woman he’d fucked senselessly for about six straight hours last night.

He’d had her on top and astride, in the shower, and on the edge of the bed. He’d held her in his arms as she sat impaled on his lap, and he’d smacked her naughty fanny as he drilled her from behind. From the moment they’d arrived back at Summerhaven, they’d made up for four months of lost time, and by midnight, they were both aching and exhausted.

And happy.

So fucking happy it should have scared him to death, but it didn’t. A man who’s been lost in the desert doesn’t worry he’s drinking too much when someone finally offers him water. He just drinks his fucking fill and then he drinks a little more.

Turning onto his side, he felt his cock twitch then jump, his balls tightening as he stared at her. Tugging on the white sheet just a little, he bared her breasts, watching in fascination as her nipples puckered into tight points. She had several hickeys on the otherwise pristine flesh of both breasts—places where he’d sucked too hard—and the marks on her skin made him even harder.

He leaned forward, running his tongue around one tan areola, his breath whispering over the dark bud that beckoned his lips. She moaned softly as he sucked the sweet nub of warm flesh into his mouth, his tongue bathing her skin as her hands found his head, her fingers threading into his hair and pulling.

Maneuvering between her legs, he licked a path to her other breast as he reached beneath her, clutching the twin globes of her ass as he sucked the left nipple into the wet heat of his mouth. She whimpered his name softly, and he pulled her forward, lining up his cock at the entrance of her pussy.

“Open yer eyes, mo cailleach.”

The fluttered open slowly, her eyebrows knitting together in dreamy desire as she stared up at him.

“Do you want me?” he asked.

She arched her back, welcoming the tip of his erection into her hot, soaked sex.

“Say it,” he insisted.

“I want you,” she said, her voice sleepy and low, her eyes closing as he held her tightly and slid forward slowly, inch by perfect inch, until he was balls deep inside of her, the walls of her pussy clenching tightly around his cock.

He didn’t know what was happening between them. He didn’t necessarily understand why this woman, who tried to appear as though she needed no one, had so captured his attention and his heart, but it was one of those things he could neither explain nor completely understand. He only knew that being with her—being intimate with her—was a high he’d never known, and being apart from her for four months had been a low he’d just as soon never revisit again.

“Tate,” he murmured, withdrawing his cock to the tip, then surging forward again, “you feel…fuck, but you feel so good.”

“Mm-hm,” she hummed. “Harder, Fin. Faster. I need…please, I need…”

“You need to come, lass,” he said, panting, feeling his own orgasm imminent.

Digging his fingers into her ass, he pulled her impossibly closer, keeping his thrusts short and fast as she whimpered and moaned beneath him. He held her body with one arm as he licked his fingers, then slid them between the delicate folds of her slickened skin to find and tease her clit.

She threw her forearm over her closed eyes, her whole body going rigid for just a second before she cried out his name and the walls of her sex rippled in waves—clench, release, clench, release, clench release clenchreleaseclenchreleaseclenchrelease…

“FUCK!” he growled, his massaged cock swelling thick within her, tight to the point of pain, and then—cresting, cresting, sucking his breath from his lungs—letting go. He groaned in satisfaction, his breath catching as he came inside of her in sweet, hot, glorious pulses of pleasure.

Panting and sweating, he rolled to his back, taking her with him. She sprawled over his chest, her face against his neck, her lips resting on his throat.

“I missed you,” he said softly, as the world stopped spinning and he opened his eyes slowly. “Fuck, but I missed you, woman.”

He felt her inhalation of breath, and the way she held it before finally letting it go.

“I know,” she said softly, her voice like gravel.

It bruised his heart a little that she didn’t return the sentiment, but instead of swallowing that small pain, he decided to face it.

“That’s not good enough,” he said, repeating the same words he’d used in the car last night when she’d had trouble telling him that she liked him.

Disengaging their bodies, Tate rolled to her side, presenting him with her back, and though it took Fin and a moment to realize it, a soft, shuttering breath clued him in to the fact that she was crying.

Tate.

Was crying.

Shite.

He reached for her and pulled her back against his chest gently but firmly, sliding one arm under her head and draping the other over her waist and flattening it beneath her breasts.

“Shhh. Shhh, now, sweet girl. I don’t mean to push you so hard,” he murmured, holding her tightly and letting her cry. As much as he could, he wanted to absorb the pain she held inside, to reverse her belief that love was impossible, and that caring for someone meant heartache. “What happened to you, lass? What hurts so much, mo cailleach?”

“H-Hag,” she mewled softly, accompanied by a little chortle crossed with a sniffle.

“I told you that it didn’t mean—”

“Shut up, Fin,” she said with another sniffle, followed by a deep, jagged breath that filled her lungs, but not without effort. “I like it.”

She turned in his arms, facing him with glistening eyes and damp cheeks, and he very sternly told himself that this was not a good time to be distracted by the rasp of her still-erect nipples against his chest.

He stared into her eyes, forcing his concentration to zero in on her heart and her head and, just for now, not on her body.

She took another ragged breath and let it go, exhaling against his chest in a puff of warm wind.

“Talk to me,” he said. “Let me in just a little.”

Her eyes were bleak as she looked at him, a tear slipping from her lashes and sliding down her cheek.

“Please, Tate,” he coaxed.

“Stop looking at me,” she said softly.

He nodded, rolling to his back. She rested her cheek over his heart, and he stroked her back, waiting for her to talk, trying to be patient.

Finally, when she was ready, she cleared her throat. “I don’t do this. I don’t get emotional. I don’t get attached. I don’t let people in. Never.”

“I know,” he said. “But it’s okay. You’re safe with me.”

“Am I?”

And he didn’t have to think. He spoke from the heart. “You are.”

“I think I only let myself fall for you because everything was temporary.”

He knew this. He knew it, and yet he hated to hear it. Her reminder that everything they shared was temporary, in fact, almost ruined the thrill of her inadvertently admitting that she’d fallen for him. Almost.

“Doesn’t have to be,” he said, purposely keeping his voice light. “We’re adults who earn money. I heard about this new invention called an airplane. We don’t have to say good-bye forever.”

Her lips pressed against his chest for a moment. “Yes, we do. I live in Florida. You live in Ireland. Temporary is why this works.”

Fin didn’t agree with her. When they’d first met in November, he’d been of the same mind, but as days apart turned into agonizing weeks turned into almost unbearable months, he’d realized that they’d forged a deeper connection in their few days together. And now that they’d reconnected? The idea of losing her again felt…well, terrible. Not that he knew what to do about it. For now, he simply decided not to fight with her.

“We don’t have to decide all of that right this minute,” he said. “Tell me about you.”

“Me.” She exhaled loudly, like she couldn’t stand the story she was about to tell. “Poor little Tate.”

“How’s that?”

Her index finger moved absentmindedly over his right pec as she spoke, drawing small circles, one after the other. “When I was eight, we lived in Boston. Me and my parents. One night—a completely boring night in March—my parents hired a sitter and went out to dinner. A date night. Nothing extraordinary. Nothing crazy. Dinner and a movie. Except it was sleeting when they got out of the movie. On the way home, a drunk driver slammed into their car. If the roads hadn’t been so slippery, he might have been able to stop, but between his poor reflexes and the weather, he couldn’t.”

Fin closed his eyes and clenched his jaw. He knew the rest of the story without asking, and it explained so much about her—why she was so closed to love, why she was so certain it would hurt her.

“They were probably killed instantly,” she murmured, then added in a barely audible whisper: “Probably.”

Fin gulped, his fingers stilling on her back as he processed the terrible thing that had happened to her at such a young age.

“I was sent to live with my Uncle Pete, my mom’s older brother, who lived—well, lives—in the Florida Keys. He was forty. A bachelor. I barely knew him. He never wanted kids, never wanted to be a father.”

“What happened then?” asked Fin, wondering if this “Uncle Pete” had mistreated her in any way, everything inside of him ready to buy a plane ticket to Florida and beat the shite out of the old bastard with his bare hands if that was the case.

“He learned how,” she said softly, her voice uncharacteristically vulnerable. “He…became my everything. Mother. Father. Uncle. Family. Friend.” She paused for a second, and Fin relaxed, his hand moving gently on her back again. “We were an odd couple, Uncle Pete and me, but he loved me. Loves me. And I…well, you know.”

He did know. She loved him, this uncle who’d taken in a shattered child and given her a safe harbor in the middle of a deadly storm.

“You love him back.”

Her finger on his chest stilled, and he realized—yet again—that the word love was a painful trigger for her. He rephrased his words: “He’s important to you.”

“He’s all I’ve got,” said Tate, her finger resuming its circles.

Finian almost corrected her. He almost said, No, sweet girl, you have me too. But it wasn’t the right time for such a declaration. While she was sharing her story, it was his job to listen.

“Was your childhood ever…happy again?”

“I don’t know.” She took another deep breath, but this one was strong and smooth. “My childhood was like a broken mirror. Fractured glass gives a strange reflection, you know?”

“You were broken.”

She nodded. “I’ll always be broken. That’s why…that’s why I can’t…why I won’t…”

“That’s why you won’t be loved,” he finished for her.

“Yes.”

Or love in return.

The unspoken words hovered between them for a moment before fading away. It was futile to say them aloud or insist on them, silly to try to make her understand that broken things could be pieced back together with patience and determination, love and time.

And frankly, Finian had no right to say anything.

Fin could practice patience when he wanted to. And when he set his mind to something, he could be very determined. But love? He hadn’t loved Cynthia, and he didn’t know if he loved Tate. He was infatuated, yes, and he cared about her, certainly, but love? The sort of strong, forever, no-matter-what kind of love that a broken girl would need? He didn’t know if he had that sort of love to offer her. And besides, they barely had any time to find out. Today was Friday, and she left for home on Monday. Two days later, he’d return to Dublin.

It made him feel heavy hearted.

It made him wish for the sort of time that would allow him to develop the kind of love she needed.

This wasn’t supposed to be complicated, he thought to himself. How did random sex at a wedding turn into something that mattered so much?

With her cheek on his heart, and his mind whirling with questions, they lay in silence as the world awakened outside of Trinity Cottage, as the finches and chickadees called for their breakfasts. The distant roar of a motor told Fin that his cousin Ian was up and moving, which made Finian muse on a more immediate problem.

They’d been so hungry for time alone with one another, they hadn’t even stopped to say hello to the rest of the Havens last night, a choice he and Tate would likely pay for this morning with a hearty round of teasing at breakfast.

“My cousins are goin’ to be cunts about this,” he said.

“About us sleeping together?” she asked.

“Mm-hm.”

She leaned up on his chest, her face lighter and, he thought, more open since telling him about her childhood. It made his stupid heart swell to see it.

“I couldn’t give two shits,” she answered.

“When you sweet talk like that,” said Fin, grinning at her, “I want to fuck you all over again, woman.”

“Don’t you mean ‘hag’?” she asked, letting him flip her to her back and welcoming him by spreading her legs.

“Yeah, I do,” he said, grinning at her as his cock stiffened to stone, seeking entry. “Mo cailleach. My pretty little witch. I want you.”

“I want you too,” she said, staring into his eyes.

She arched her back, gasping as he slid into her body in one smooth thrust, her ankles rising to lock on his ass, and her eyes rolling back in ecstasy.

And Finian, who now understood the fierce reservations of her heart, held her tightly as he joined his body with hers, desperately hoping that whatever attachment they’d developed for one another wouldn’t leave them both forever scarred when it was severed.

***

While Ian, Rory, Finian, Burr, and most of the other guests headed down to the Gilford Ice Arena for a game of hockey, Hallie invited the younger ladies—a very pregnant Brittany, Tate, and Tierney—to her apartment for an afternoon of board games in front of the fire. But games had been quickly abandoned for talking, and it was only a matter of minutes until they asked Tate what was going on between her and Finian.

Contrary to what Fin had predicted, no one had bothered them at breakfast, during a morning hike up West Rattlesnake Mountain, or during lunch, which had featured delectable Irish fare like fish and chips and shepherd’s pie. It was almost as though someone had forbidden the heckling of Tate and Finian, which made Tate wonder.

But perhaps strangest of all, as the hours wore on, Tate found that she was dying to talk about it—about Finian, about her confusing feelings, about the future or lack thereof. It was such a change for her to actually want to talk about a guy, to know that she liked him and he meant something to her, no matter how temporary or unusual their relationship.

“It was so nice of Suzanne to take the girls to the game,” said Hallie, who was nestled into the couch beside Brittany, their slippered feet resting on the coffee table. “Bridey and Jenny are crazy about each other. And it gives us a chance to catch up.”

“Does Jenny like hockey?” asked Tate, thinking that Hallie’s little girl seemed awfully young to enjoy the game.

“I don’t think she understands it,” said Hallie, “but she loves Ian. There is, literally, no scenario in which she passes up the chance to spend time with him.”

“Does it ever make you jealous?” asked Tierney, who was curled up in a cozy armchair by the fire. “How close Jenny is to my brother?”

Hallie shook her head, a peaceful smile on her lips. “Nope. I love it. They’re like two peas in a pod. I don’t know if there’s anything on earth that makes me happier than seeing Ian and Jenny together.”

“Ian’s a great dad,” agreed Brittany in a dreamy voice. As soon as she realized what she’d said, however, she cut her eyes to Hallie. “Oh, gosh! Not that he’s her father…I just meant—”

“I know what you meant,” said Hallie. “And it’s true. He is a great dad to her. In fact…” She scrunched up her nose. “Oh, God…I’m not supposed to tell you girls something that I really, really want to tell you!”

“Well,” said Tate, who was sitting in a matching armchair across from Tierney, “now you have to tell us.”

“You don’t want to piss off a woman as pregnant as I am!” Brittany threw a pillow at her friend. “Spill. It.”

Hallie flicked a nervous glance at Tierney, then took a deep breath. “You know how we’re having a little céilí in the barn tomorrow night?”

“What’s a céilí?” asked Tate.

“A dance,” said Tierney. “Like a square dance, but for Irish people.”

“Keep going!” insisted Britt.

“Well…there’s a priest coming, you know. He’s a friend of the boys, and so we were thinking that during the céilí,” said Hallie, still staring Tierney with a nervous expression, “Ian and I might…”

“Oh, my God!” cried Britt. “Are you getting married tomorrow?”

“We were thinking about it,” said Hallie, wincing at Tierney. “Are you mad, Tierney?”

Tierney was smiling from ear to ear. “Mad? Why in God’s name would I be mad?”

“Because you were next to get married,” said Hallie. “I would never, ever want to steal your thunder!”

“Oh, Hallie,” said Tierney, “I’m only too glad for Ian to go before me. Besides, our wedding isn’t until summer!”

“Really? You’re sure?”

Tierney nodded. “I promise! I’m so happy for you two!”

Hallie jumped up to hug her almost sister-in-law, and the ladies talked briefly about how they could help Hallie tomorrow.

At one point, Tate glanced around the room, her eyes landing on Brittany, who was staring back at her with a curious expression.

“I can’t stand it anymore,” Britt blurted out.

“What can’t you stand?” asked Tate.

Britt looked at Hallie with a desperate expression. “I know you made us all promise not to ask. And I know you said that Ian would personally beat up anyone who bothered Tate about Finian, but…but…but…I’m dying to know, and he wouldn’t hit a pregnant lady, would he? No! Never! So I figure I’m the only one who can ask!” Without waiting for Hallie to answer, Brittany locked eye with Tate. “What the hell is going on with you two?”

Tate stared back at her childhood friend—at the wild expression in her pretty blue eyes—and surprised herself by bursting into giggles. “Oh, my God, Britt. You’re a junkie for romance!”

Hallie and Tierney joined Tate in laughter, but it quickly faded, and Tate was met with three sets of eyes staring at her with blatant curiosity.

She sighed. “Fine. What do you want to know?”

They all started talking at once, but Brittany yelled, “I was the only one with the courage to ask! I get to go first!” She turned to Tate. “Did it start at my wedding?”

“Yes.”

“Did you guys have sex?” asked Hallie.

Tate nodded. “Uh…yeah.”

Tierney gasped. “Were you having sex after the wedding? We couldn’t find you two anywhere!”

“Roger that. In the choir room at the church.”

“Dirty girl!” exclaimed Brittany with dancing eyes. “And last night?”

“Mm-hm.” Lots. “He stayed overnight with me at Trinity.”

“I noticed he didn’t come home last night,” said Hallie, who was sitting closest to Tate. “You like him, Tate?”

Taking a deep breath, Tate nodded. “I like him.”

Britt hit Hallie with a pillow. “I have never heard her say that! Despite all of my efforts to find her a boyfriend at camp!”

“That’s because she never has,” said Hallie.

“So what comes next?” asked Tierney, her expression thoughtful.

“I don’t know,” answered Tate honestly, her heart pinching a little. “He lives in Ireland. I live in Florida.”

“They’ve got these things called airplanes…” said Tierney.

“Oh, my God!” exclaimed Tate, her eyes widening at Fin’s cousin. “You two are definitely related!”

“Did he say the same thing?”

“Verbatim.”

“Well, what about it?” asked Britt. “I mean…you could go there and visit him. He could go to Florida to visit you. There’s Facebook and Instagram and e-mail and Skype. It’s, like, not the worst time in history to be in a long-distance relationship, Tate.”

What Brittany said made sense to Tate, and in yet another strange realization, she found that she wasn’t totally repelled by the idea of making her “thing” with Fin less than temporary, though that was probably because of the buffer between them: an ocean.

“Tate,” said Hallie, whose parents had been friends with Tate’s in Boston before they died. “They’d want you to be happy. You know that, don’t you?”

“Do you remember them, Hallie?”

She nodded. “I do. My mom and your mom were good friends. You came to all of my birthday parties, and they would talk and laugh all afternoon.”

“Don’t forget me!” said Brittany. “I was there too!”

“But your mom stopped coming after the divorce,” said Hallie.

Britt shrugged. “True.”

“Oh, my gosh!” said Tierney. “That’s right! I almost forgot. Your mothers attended Summerhaven together, didn’t they?”

The other three women nodded.

“We’re legacies,” said Hallie.

“Don’t change the subject,” snapped Britt, pointing a finger at Tate. “You and Fin. What’s the plan, Tate? You’re killing me.”

“So dramatic,” said Hallie, rolling her eyes. “Leave Tate alone.”

“Maybe Tate doesn’t know the plan,” said Tierney, her green eyes so like Fin’s as she watched Tate from across the small sitting room. “Maybe she’s still figuring it out.”

Grateful for Tierney’s gentle understanding, Tate nodded. “This is a first for me, girls. I can’t remember the last time I let someone like me and actually liked them back. And who do I choose? A man from across the sea. I’m hopeless.”

“No, you’re not,” said Tierney. “You’re cautious. I understand that.”

“We can’t always choose,” said Hallie. “Sometimes it just…happens.”

“And when it does,” added Brittany, “all you can do is hang on.”

Her three friends started talking about Hallie’s miniwedding tomorrow, and the conversation shifted, but Tate was left with Britt’s words resonating in her brain and the idea that maybe—just maybe—she would.