Page 32 of Resurrection

Finn pushes my shirt away from my arm, and his fingers land on the three buttons at the top that’ll make the material very loose.

I cover his hand, stilling his progress. “Don’t.”

“I need to see.” His free hand circles around my neck, his thumb grazing my cheek. “You might need a doctor.”

I move his hand aside and undo the buttons myself. There is something deeply intimate in letting him undress me, especiallywhen he’s like this—tame, concerned, almost loving. After a storm of violence, he’s often gentle, and his tenderness makes my chest ache with longing.

My sleeve slips down, and he turns me. With the cloth from the sink, he washes the wound. “A graze.”

“Lucky,” I whisper. His proximity, the tangy scent of him, this kindness will undo the immunity I’ve fought for today.

His thumb grazes the top of my arm, just beside the mark, and then he bends his head to kiss my shoulder. A shiver runs through me. Electrifying.

“Finn,” I murmur, and my body is liquid, pliable. He could do anything to me, and I’d let him.

His arms slide around my waist, and he buries his face in the crook of my neck. “God, how do you always smell so fucking amazing? Someday when I die, I hope the way you smell is the last thing I remember.”

I relish the simplicity of this moment. I breathe him in, letting my awareness of him flood my senses. Our desire won’t be fulfilled, not here in this house with danger outside the door. He’d never risk my safety. Being able to acknowledge the yearning between us makes me less unstable, more solid.

“Jay? Ricardo?” I ask when he eases away.

“Jay is fine. Ricardo is dead.”

“Dead? How?”

“We got lucky. Ricardo was a direct hit through a window.”

“Oh.” I smooth my hair at the top of my head. “Right. This is… I mean, I know we deal with weapons, but they aren’t often used on us.” I lean against the counter while Finn opens kitchen cabinets. “What are you looking for?”

“First aid kit. I can patch that up, no problem.” He nods toward my shoulder.

“There’ll be a kit in the car's trunk.” The graze is still trickling blood, but the pain isn’t the same as before. “What’s Jay doing?”

“Calling the Russian police and figuring out how we can pay them off to keep us out of this.” He winks at me. “Money can solve almost anything if you get the right people.”

“Except you hate disloyal people.”

He chuckles. “Only when it doesn’t go my way.” He reaches for me and then he thinks better of it, sliding his hand into his front pocket. “Let’s get you to the car. We can wait there for Jay to finish, and I’ll patch you up.”

“Thank you,” I whisper. “If you hadn’t—”

His jaw tightens, and he won’t meet my gaze. “But I did. The lesson here is that you areneverto be the first person in or out of anywhere, not a car, not a house, not a boat, nowhere.” He stares at me. “You got me?”

“I don’t want you or Jay hurt or killed either.”

With a shake of his head, Finn purses his lips. “Jay’s paid to do this. It’s his job. He doesn’t want it, he can go work somewhere else. And me? I’m disposable. I got nothing going on right now except for helping you. What’s another bullet wound?”

“You’re not disposable to me.”

He doesn’t miss a beat, gliding over my comment as though my husky voice filled with need sounded matter-of-fact instead of desperate. “For the purposes of entering and exiting places, we’ll pretend I am. Also, I could use my own fucking gun.”

I keep an arm crossed over my middle as though it can shield me. “Okay.”

He leads the way out of the house. We pass Jay on the phone in the living room. He has my gun in his hand as we walk to the vehicle, ready to aim and fire at any moment.

“Maybe they were after Ricardo?” I say.

“Maybe.” But Finn doesn’t sound convinced.

---