Page 45 of Home Free

“At first, I didn’t want to pressure you. Then I didn’t want you to think I was the one who felt pressured. And then…”

“Then?”

“Then all this shit happened. The stuff at the mountain house and the Boxgrove gala and now this thing with Nico. I wanted you to know that I want you with me. I wanted to make sure you knew it was the only thing on my mind, that I wasn’t asking you lightly, that I wasn’t asking because I felt pressured to ask. But I also didn’t want you to feel pressured and…” He dragged a hand through his hair and her heart softened at the torment in his eyes. “I’ve been trying to get it right, trying to do everything the right way for you and for me. But El… I want you to come with me when this is all over. I don’t know where we’ll go or what we’ll do, but I want to do it together. So will you? Come with me?”

His eyes were pleading. She knew he meant it, but she also knew the conversation wasn’t over, that it couldn’t be over until she said the hardest thing of all.

“I want to go with you, but… I’m not like you, Finn. I’m not fearless. I can’t promise I won’t get scared, and I can’t promise that I won’t slow you down.” She swallowed the emotion clogging her throat. “I’m better, but I’m not how I used to be. I don’t know if I’ll ever be how I used to be.”

He pulled her into his arms. “I don’t want you how you used to be. I want you the way you are, El. Right here, right now. I don’t need to go fast. In fact…” He hesitated, and she sensed he was about to say something important, something real. “I’m starting to think I’ve been going too fast for too long, hiding and running.”

She pulled away to look up at him. “Hiding and running from what?”

He looked into her eyes. “From everything. My mom’s cancer and Erin and the way she died and how empty my family felt afterward. It was easier to leave it all behind, but I know now that was a coward’s way out, and I know that because of you.”

She couldn’t hide her surprise.“Because of me?”

He nodded. “You stayed. You faced what happened to you, went to therapy, did scary things even when you were terrified. You dealt with it.” He swallowed. “It’s time I did the same. So let’s go slow, El. Let’s go someplace new and stay there until we know every street and every shop, until I’ve stopped running and you’re ready for something new.” He smoothed the hair back from her face. “I just want to be with you.”

She smiled up at him, hardly daring to believe the words were true but believing them anyway. “I want to be with you too.”

A grin washed over his face. “You do?”

“Why else would I make an ass of myself like this?”

He laughed and held her face in his hands. “I’m the ass, but I’m the ass who loves you, who wants to be with you.”

She tightened her arms around his waist. “It’s everything I’ve ever wanted.”

Then they laughed together.

Finn lowered his head and touched his lips to her. Their past was in the kiss, everything that had brought them to this moment, but their future was in it too.

Heat rose between them as Finn’s tongue grew more urgent against her own, the kiss deeper and more frenzied as their need for each other grew.

When they pulled away, they were both breathing hard, Finn’s eyes feverish with desire. “Let’s get out of here.”

25

They spilled into the apartment, their hands all over each other from the elevator. Finn managed to compose himself long enough to make sure Ronan wasn’t in the living room, but after confirming the place was dark and silent, he scooped Elise into his arms and carried her down the hall to the bedroom they’d claimed when they arrived at the penthouse.

Her arms went around his neck, her mouth hungry as their tongues parried, her hands fisting his hair.

He entered the darkened bedroom and closed the door behind him with his foot, then carried her to bed and dropped her playfully on the mattress.

She stifled a giggle and got onto her knees at the edge of the bed, then fumbled with his zipper, trying to remove his trousers while he reached for the hem of her T-shirt.

He’d never wanted someone so much, had never been so desperate to join his body with another.

He managed to get her T-shirt off and threw it aside, then waited while she slipped his jeans down his thighs, taking his underwear with them, freeing his rock hard cock.

He sighed with relief, then groaned when she wrapped her palm around his shaft.

He stepped out of the pants. “Lay down, El.”

He didn’t know why his mood had changed from playful to commanding. He only knew that he was burning for her, desperate to lose himself in her, to prove to himself that she was real.

She lay back on the bed and lifted her arms over her head, her bare breasts jutting from her chest, her nipples hard and begging for his mouth.

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