Page 13 of Protecting Jess

Finn wanted to grab her hand and hold it against his chest. This close, he could smell the jasmine scent that he now associated with her. The scent that had stuck with him since that night in New York all those years ago.

Instead, he held his hands up in the universal sign of surrender. “My friend, Oak, wanted to talk to you. It wasn’t my idea.”

A look of disappointment flared in Jess’s eyes before she blinked it away. “Oh.”

The urge to hold her against him was strong and it was getting harder and harder to not give into it.

He wouldn’t. By saying no to his invitation, Jess had made her choice.

A choice he would have to live with, even though he didn’t want to.

Five

The sounds from the bar faded as Jess stood and stared at Finn. Why was this happening to her now?

Why was he turning up when she didn’t want him to?

His friend looked between her and Finn, as if he could work out what was going on between them.

No doubt her castmates were, too, and Kaley probably had a million questions. Questions Jess didn’t want to answer, because she didn’t know how to.

“I’ll leave you to your friends,” Finn finally said, and took a step away from her.

Her hand fell to her side.

How long had she left it on his chest?

Jess hadn’t been aware she hadn’t moved it after she’d poked his chest. A chill swept through her when he took another step away. “No!” The word came from the depths of her soul.

Forgetting that she was with her group of friends. Forgetting that she was about to make a spectacle of herself. Forgetting the hurt their last encounter brought her, she launched herself at Finn, hooking her arms around his neck.

His arms came around her automatically, and everything in her settled.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered in his ear. “Don’t go. I don’t want you to go.”

His arms tightened around her, and she snuggled closer to him. “I got you, popsicle.”

Jess heard the deep baritone of Finn’s friend as he spoke to her castmates, but all of that faded into the recesses of her mind as she absorbed the feeling of rightness that being in Finn’s arms brought her.

“Do you want to get out of here?” His lips brushed against her ear.

All she could do was nod against his neck.

A chuckle rumbled through him. His chest vibrated against hers, and Jess committed the sound and feeling to memory.

“You gotta let me go. Unless you want me to carry you out. Which I’m totally fine doing.”

It was as though from the time he’d walked away from her on the dance floor in New York until now, every single emotion she’d experienced had surfaced from where she’d buried them. They held her immobile. Her arms were stiff, like petrified wood, and lowering them seemed impossible.

“Jess?” Finn asked again.

Somehow, she forced her limbs to move, and she released her gorilla grip on him. Jess took a small step away from the warmth of his body. “Sorry.”

Finn smiled, the smile that always lit the flame of happiness—and now, as an adult, desire—within her.

“Nothing to be sorry for. Do you want to tell your friend that we’re leaving?”

The fog that’d shrouded her the second he’d uttered that he was leaving lifted and the sounds of the bar registered. Jess winced. Had it got louder?

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