Cora
It was nearly midnight when Finn dropped Oliver and Cora back off at their temporary apartment. Oliver carried five Tupperware containers filled with leftovers inside. Cora was on her way after him when Finn gripped her hand.
“Hey. Can we talk?”
She had every intention of saying no until she looked into his face. Her mother had described him as pretty. He was that, and so much more. The moon shone down on him, turning his skin into burnished gold and casting silver shadows across his face. The dark fall of his hair was nearly hidden against the backdrop of night. It should have looked strange, but all it did was remind her how well the rest of him fit together. The soft lips, the cheekbones that could have chipped ice, the gimlet glitter of his eyes. He was, as far as Cora was concerned, perfect.
And, yet, in spite of that, her mother’s unexpected advice was swimming around in her head like bad wine. Cora knew they weren’t right for each other. They belonged in completely different worlds, but with him staring down at her like that, she couldn’t do anything but nod. “Yeah, all right.”
She had expected for him to just start talking. He didn’t. His fingers drifted down the inside of her wrist to stroke along her palm until their fingers linked together. They drifted toward the pool at the center of the apartment complex, though it was closed. There was even a sign slung across the little gate to inform them of that. It didn’t matter. Finn hopped over the fence with that panther-like grace he had, then helped her to do the same.
“What’s wrong?” he asked as he tugged off his boots and rolled up the ends of his pants. He slid his feet into the water, disrupting the perfect smoothness of the water. “You barely talked to me after we got to the barbecue.”
She slipped off her own shoes and joined him at the edge of the pool. The water was cold against her skin. “I’ve got a lot on my mind.”
He gave her a long look. “If you don’t wanna talk about it, fine. But that vague answer bullshit is annoying and beneath you.”
She raised her brow at him and rolled her eyes. The first flicker of frustration heated her words. “Beneath me? Do you think you actually know me?”
“Better than you’d like,” he answered without the heat she expected. “Which is pretty much what’s bugging you, I think. Or, it might be more than that, maybe. I don’t know. But when it comes down to it, I think you don’t like that we are getting close.”
“We aren’t close.”
“Really?” he retorted. “I mean, seems to me like when you were breaking down, you came to see me and we talked all day about our lives and dreams, and then we had wild sex and went to a family gathering together where I brought you cake.”
He had brought her cake, she remembered, and he’d brought her drinks and got her food and hung out at her side right up until everyone had gone home. Maybe that had something to do with her mother, maybe not. If it had been anyone else, it would have been the sweetest night with her family ever. He had passed stories with Old Man Jones and drank beers with her father. He had slid so seamlessly into her life, it was almost scary.
“The cake was nice. The Parkers make the best cake. I don’t know why I had to bring dessert if they were coming.”
“Nice try with the changing of the subject. I’m impressed.” He slung an arm around her, and she found herself turning into the embrace. She shouldn’t have, but it felt good. He felt good. The scent of him was rich and comforting. “You wanna try that again?”
“My mother,” she said with a sigh. “She just said some things.”
“Did she give you the speech about ditching your short-term boy toy when you hightail it back to your fancy gold-card life?” He gave her a squeeze. It was the sort of intimate comfort that a boyfriend would provide, not a boy toy.
“It’s a black card and, yes, basically. How did you know?”
“She cornered me and basically gave me the same talk.”
Cora whipped her head toward him so fast she nearly cracked her skull against his. Her lips were nearly pressed against his cheek when she demanded, “She did what?”
He kept his arm around her but scooted back so she could see his whole face. “When your dad was showing off his burger-flipping technique, she pulled me aside. I was pretty worried, thought she was going to go all Mrs. Robinson on me.”
“It would not have surprised me. But instead she told you I was going to break up with you?”
“No. She told me I ought to leave you alone. That I wasn’t good enough for you. You know the shtick.” He rolled his eyes and placed a very affectionate kiss on her brow. It felt a little too casual, too familiar.
She flinched away from it. The arm so casually slung around her back stiffened. He didn’t quite pull away, but she felt him straighten up a little, putting a few inches of distance between them. A rush of cool night air found purchase between the new space. Goose bumps formed on the spots of skin where his body had once been touching. She turned her gaze back to the pool and the reflection of the night sky on its nearly smooth surface.
“Oh,” she managed. “And what did you say to that?”
“That it was none of her business.”
“You did not,” Cora said, her eyes closing as another flicker of frustration joined the first. She wasn’t sure who exactly she was getting angry with. Her mother, perhaps, for getting involved a few years too late in Cora’s life. Or him for telling her mother it wasn’t her business. “Tell me you didn’t.”
“Why not? It isn’t any of her business. What happens, what is happening, between you and me is between no one else but you and me. That’s all there is to it.”
For a moment, all Cora could think about were the pictures on her brother’s phone. She could almost see them reflected in the barely disrupted surface of the crystal-clear water. “As much as I’d like to agree with that, I can’t. Carson isn’t a huge place where you can get lost in a city to find your own privacy. Everyone’s lives are connected with everyone’s else. I mean, just look at the barbecue tonight. Everyone there was related by business or by blood to one another within a couple of steps. Old Man Jones and Kyle not only share a military history, but Kyle’s mother is Jones’s second cousin. The husband to Misty’s first two are the Parkers’ nephew. And—”
“Stop.” His tone was a firm command that brought her up short. His put a single finger to her chin and tilted her head up until she was looking back at him. “Don’t do that.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Do what?”
“Don’t try to make more of this than it is. Your mom got protective, I told her to leave it alone. It’s not a big deal.”
“That’s really easy for you to say.”
He frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m Cora Anderson. I own a prestigious company that brings in millions of dollars’ worth of clients a year. I am respected.”
His lips tilted a little farther down. His finger dropped away from her chin. “So, what am I? A gold digger?”
“Are you?” she shot back. “As far as I know, you’ve spent a lot of your time chasing barely legal girls and married soccer moms. I’m not exactly your type. I pushed you away from the start, but you kept throwing yourself in my way.”
His eyes glittered. “Be very careful what you are saying here.”
The flickers of anger became a ball of fire kindled in her belly. “Why? Because I should be afraid of you, big bad biker boy?”
“What the hell is your problem?” he demanded. “What’s wrong?”
She heaved herself away from him, pulling her wet feet out of the water. She was trembling and she didn’t have any clue whether it was because she was cold or because she was angry. How dare he ask her what was wrong. Everything was wrong. She wasn’t supposed to be back in this town. She wasn’t supposed to be dealing with her family’s problems, and she certainly wasn’t supposed to be getting involved with him. But he’d never really given her a choice, had he? He just kept coming after her and coming after her, over and over again. He’d been at the pool hall, he’d been at the Deli, and he’d been involved in Oliver’s life. And what had happened when she’d tried to tell Finn, as nicely as she could, that this wasn’t going to happen again? He had pushed and made her feel guilty for deciding what was going to happen in her own damned life. Well, maybe that kind of alpha-male aggressive BS worked on the women he was used to surrounding himself with, but she was Cora Anderson and no one told her what to do.
“What’s wrong?” she repeated, carefully patting her feet against the cement that was still warm from the heat of the day. She kept her voice as cool and calm as she could manage despite the anger that was burning in her belly. “What’s wrong is that you do not know how to take no for an answer. I tried to tell you that what was happening was a mistake, a temporary one, but you simply didn’t listen.”
He surged to his feet. “That’s really funny coming from your mouth. You don’t listen to anyone but yourself.”
She fixed him with a cool gaze. “Oh? That’s interesting considering how many clients have praised my ability to hear their needs.”
“Is that what I need to be? A client? Do I need to throw a few thousand dollars at you in order for you to listen to me? Damn it, woman, what is your problem with the idea of being in love?”
“I don’t have a problem with being in love.” She shrugged one shoulder and flicked her hand through the air dismissively. The irony that her mother liked to make the same motion was not entirely lost on Cora. “I just don’t think you are suitable for my lifestyle.”
His face morphed into a cloud of anger. His mouth twisted and his eyes went as hard and as dark as obsidian. She hated seeing that look on his face, hated knowing she put it there, but he had to understand. He had to see the truth. This was never going to work, and they both knew it. The knowledge of it had her belly rolling.
“You don’t think I’m suitable?” he demanded.
“Isn’t that what I just said?” She reached down and plucked her shoes off the now wet cement. “Finn, you are an attractive man, but at the end of the day you are a criminal and I’m a businesswoman. We have one thing in common and that’s Oliver. As soon as he is handled, I go back to my world and you go back to yours, and that is all there is to it.”
“So that’s it?” he snarled.
She rolled her pants back into place with a casualness she didn’t feel. “If I thought you could separate these feelings that you have for me from the consensual sex we’ve been having, I wouldn’t be having this conversation with you now. But you have shown that you are just going to keep getting more and more emotionally invested, and the truth is I cannot handle that.”
“You ice-cold bitch.” He seized her upper arms. She felt the rough scrape of his callused palms against her skin. “Why are you doing this? I know you feel something.”
“Remove your hands from me at once.”
“God, you sound like a petty goddess, and it drives me nuts.” His mouth descended on hers with a ferocity that left her breathless. He tasted like fire. She wanted to taste it, to dive into it, but her mother’s words swam back up in her mind. They didn’t belong together, and pretending like they could was going to do nothing but hurt them both. Cora knew it and, sooner or later, Finn would come to the same conclusion.
So why were their tears in her eyes when he jerked his mouth off hers?
“I’m going home,” he snapped. His mouth was wet and shining with their kiss. “I am going home and I want you think long and hard about what you really want, Cora Anderson. I don’t want you to think about what your mom wants, or what is best for Oliver, or hell…don’t even think about what I want. Figure out what the hell is really going to make you happy because I’m not playing this game with you anymore. I’m not a dog. I’m not going to call when you whistle and then go to my kennel when you are done.”
He whirled away from her. His feet made temporary prints on the concrete in the wake of his steps. She watched him go and wondered if she was ever going to see him again. Then she wondered why the thought of leaving a biker club criminal was so painful.