by Emelia Blair
I glare at Lucia as i answer, “Because she already promised she would.”
“Just as well.” Finn sighs. “I have some work to get done. Do you mind if I set up here in a corner booth?”
“Sure.” I wonder what kind of work he has. I’ve never seen him really do anything. It’s then that I notice the leather bag next to him. “Do you need a wall socket? There’s one under each seat.”
“Thanks, luv.” Finn pulls me closer by using the captive curl and presses his mouth against mine, lightly.
This happens much to the shock of the people watching us, and to their glee as is evident by the large smiles over taking their faces.
Even Lucia is gaping at me.
I feel my cheeks flushing.
Finn, in the meantime, just grins and finds a seat.
“What was that?” she demands. “I thought you were determined to never let him…Does this mean the date last night went well?”
I feel the dull ache between my legs that serves as a reminder while I watch Finn take out his laptop. “You could say that.” There’s a warmth seeping into my body as I look at the man who’s been nothing short of unexpected as he’s bulldozed his way into my life, and I don’t notice the soft smile on my lips till Lucia points it out.
“Are you….” For the first time, she looks concerned. “Clara, are you developing feelings for him?”
I turn to look at her, considering her words.
Lucia continues while looking concerned, “You know that might not end well. He’s a business tycoon and he’s not from here. We don’t know how long he intends to stay for.”
Her words hit me like a brick in the face despite the fact that I’d said as much this morning to my aunts. Somehow, someone else saying them makes it more real and a heaviness settles in my chest. “I know.” My own words sound hollow to my ears. “I’m not stupid. I won’t go and fall in love with him or something.”
Lucia doesn’t look very convinced.
I don’t know what to say to convince her otherwise. Because even I’m not sure, I believe myself.
Finn has a serious expression on his face as he looks over at his laptop. Then, as I’m watching, he glances up to meet my gaze and his entire face transforms as he grins, it’s that cheeky smile that always makes my heart race just a little faster.
I give him a half smile before looking away.
Nope. Not falling in love at all.
I tend to customers and give Stacy a half day off because she’s been working overtime and she’s beginning to look worn out.
Since it’s the weekend, the diner is only working as a coffee shop, so it closes at five which means that people complain as I tell them that it’s time to close up in half an hour.
“You’re not even eating, Jerry!” I scold him. “You’re just sitting here, solving puzzles.”
“Well, I like the seats here,” the older man argues, determined not to leave till he’s ready. “I’m old and my back hurts.”
I raise a brow at him. “I got you one of these at home for your birthday.”
He gives me a mutinously silent look.
Again, I try to convince him, “Jerry, I have to clean up and then start decorating. Come on. Don’t give me a hard time.”
He glances over at where Finn is sitting, working on his laptop. “How come you’re not kicking him out?”
My mouth flaps open. “I will.”
A shifty look emerges in his eyes. “Do it and then I’ll leave.”
My lips tighten together and my nose crinkles. “You’re a horrible person.”
He laughs as I walk away, defeated, and calls out, “But I sleep all the better for it.”
Finn looks over at the commotion and there’s a question in his eyes.
I sniff and shake my head. I prepare a hot chocolate and take it over to him. I sit across from him and nudge the cup towards him.
He looks over at the mug. “This isn’t coffee.”
“No, it isn’t,” I agree, pleasantly.
“But—”
“I made this myself,” I pretend to sigh, heavily. “If you don’t want it.” I begin reaching for the cup.
He snatches it out of my reach, saying immediately, “No, I want it.”
I smirk.
Sometimes, he so easy to read.
His eyes move back to his screen and he’s reading something as he sips the hot chocolate. Then, he looks over at me after a few minutes, blinking in surprise. “Are you voluntarily spending time with me?”
I purse my lips. “Is that a crime now?”
“Not at all.” He sets down the mug, looking pleased.
“What are you working on?”
A sudden look of discomfort flashes on his face.
It happens so fast that for a second I wonder if I imagined it.
“Answering some emails.”
I lean back in my seat and study him. “What do you really do, Finn? Don’t you have an office that you need to be at?”
“So eager to get rid of me?”
I give him a small smile. “That’s not what I meant. It’s been around a month and you’re still here. I find it strange.”
“Nosy little thing, aren’t you?”
I shrug. “I’ve been called worse.”
His lips crack into a reluctant grin. “Would you believe me if I said I was guarding my turf?”
I stare at him and blink rapidly.
He explains, smirking, “By turf, I mean you.”
“Me. No, I got it.” I raise a brow at him. “I’d call you a liar. And by liar, I mean you’re going to need a fire extinguisher for your pants.”
He chuckles, closing his laptop and giving me his full attention. “All right then. What do you want to know?”
I fiddle with my fingers, unable to hold that amber gaze for too long. “Well, you said that you hadn’t decided on what to do about the bar yet. But it’s been a week and more. And you’re still here. And now you and I are – I mean…“ I struggle with putting my thoughts into words, never having been put into a situation where I’d have to present a vulnerability like this but Lucia’s words are beating against my skull. “How long do you intend to stay here?” I blurt out the words and it takes me a second to realize how it sounds. “I didn’t mean to —”
“I understand what you mean.” Finn watches me, an inscrutable emotion in his eyes, his face calm.
I don’t know who I’m talking to right now: the sharp businessman, the playful flirt, or the dominant lover. My shoulders tense, waiting for him to respond.
“Does it scare you, what’s between us?”
The question is so out of the blue that I gape at him. “That’s not what I—”
“I know but I still want to know, regardless.”
I stare at him, my mouth snapping shut, and then against my will, I force out, “I don’t know what there is between us. I’m not planning to tie you down or something if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“Then what do you intend to do?”
I don’t know. I honestly don’t know what I want when it comes to this man. All I know is that he’s managed to creep under my skin and I’m terrified.
“Would it be easier for you if I just up and left?”
“No!” the cry slips out of me before I can stop myself.
From the way Finn’s eyes widen, he’s also taken aback but he doesn’t look upset by it. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. His eyes are glinting, and he murmurs, “Well, well.”
I get to my feet, flustered, “I mean—that’s not what I was—”
“Sit down, Clara,” he says, calmly.
I find myself bending to the authority in his voice even as I resent myself for it.
He so rarely uses my name. It’s always ‘Darlin’’ or ‘luv’. But when he does use my name, it seems like the situation is serious or that he’s no longer in a playful mood.
My heart is hammering against my chest. “I have to—”
“I think
this is an important conversation to have,” he interjects, easily. “I’m sure you can put off whatever else you have to do.”
I mutter something unattractive under my breath.
His lips twitch. “What a dirty mouth you have on you.”
The phrase reminds me of what he said last night and my cheeks heat up. I narrow my eyes at him to tell him that I’m not going to be intimidated so easily.
Finn just chuckles before sobering up. “I have other plans for the bar,” he finally says. “But my business partner is till fixated on setting up a branch here. So, for now, I’m just waiting around to see what happens.” He leans back in his seat, his arm stretching over the back of the booth. “But I quite like this town. I might never leave.” His eyes are dancing with laughter.
I frown. “Not funny.”
A somber expression settles on his face and he sits up straight, reaching out to cover my restless hands with his own, “Whatever happens, Clara, just know that I will never hurt you.”
His words are earnest but I’m afraid there is little chance of that happening.
He’s a bit too late.
Finn’s enthusiasm in helping out with decorating the diner is cute.
“I forgot how much fun this was,” he tells me, wistfully, as he stands on the ladder, pinning up the tinsel’s around the doorway.
I’m sitting on the ground trying to figure out how to wrap the lighting around the plastic snowman. “Didn’t you ever decorate your dorm at school or college?”
He’s silent and then shrugs. “What’s the point if there’s no one else to enjoy it?”
I stare at his firm back in that grey T shirt and my heart aches for him. “What about this Christmas?” I ask, hesitantly.
“What about it?”
“What are your plans?”
He stills and then looks over his shoulder. “I’m flying out on the twenty second to attend the ball and then I don’t know.”
“Oh.” The next part is harder for me because I have to put myself out there. Making sure not to look at him, I say, “If you have no plans on Christmas Day, you could spend it with us. I mean, if you want to.”
I can feel Finn’s eyes boring into the top of my head.
There’s a long silence, after which he says, softly, “That’s a nice offer. I appreciate it.”
It doesn’t escape my notice that he doesn’t give me a definitive answer. The pause is a little too long for my liking and I ask, “How did you celebrate Christmas before you went to WestHallor?”
Finn climbs down the ladder to pick up some more tassels. There’s an odd tone to his voice as he answers, “Like everyone else, I suppose. Mam was a terrible cook, so Dad and I would do most of the cooking. We’d decorate the apartment and then Mam would try to slip brandy into the egg nog and Dad would keep replacing it.” He snorts and a chuckle escapes him. He’s just standing on the ladder now, still holding the tassels, not moving, reminiscing about a past he could no longer go back to, “We didn’t have much money but they always had a gift for me. Dad was really good at woodwork and he would carve me something every Christmas and Mam would knit me a sweater which was always missing at least one required hole.” There’s a deep sadness in his voice that he doesn’t seem to be aware of.
A hot tear trails down my cheek.
He went on, “It was— well, you would have liked them.”
I quickly brush away my tears. “They sound like loving people.”
Finn moves, as if suddenly coming back to life, and he starts stringing the tassel, a fake cheerfulness to his voice as he says, “I can’t believe it’s been fifteen years, already.” He pauses, and then says slowly, “This is the first time I’ve talked to anyone about them.”
I look up from the snowman I’m wrapping. “What about your grandmother?”
He makes a strange sound. “Oh, she hates talking about them. When I first arrived at her home, she told me she had two rules. One, I never bring up my parents in front of her, and second, I follow all her rules.”
I’m stunned by this piece of knowledge. “That sounds unnecessarily harsh.”
Finn shakes his head. “She’s not all bad. But she’s still bitter about Dad abandoning the family business and the family title to marry a nobody. She had a fiancé arranged for him. That she loves bringing up, by the way. About how unfaithful her son was.”
“She had an arranged marriage for him?” I blink, taken aback. “Isn’t that rather old fashioned?”
Finn climbs down the ladder and moves it to the side so he can star working on the counter now. “My grandfather was a Duke. My father inherited the title and my grandmother wanted him to marry someone of the same social status.”
The lights fall from my hand as my eyes widen. “Wait. Wait. You’re a Duke?”
He glances at me, sheepishly. “Well, yes. On paper.”
“Duke Finn McCarthy is decorating my diner?” I mumble and then snicker.
He narrows his eyes at me. “Cute.”
I roar with laughter now, tickled by the very idea of making nobility slave away in my diner.
When Finn hears this he pouts, and then his expression turns wicked. “There are other ways I could serve you.”
My laughter dies as he approaches me, with dubious intentions, flexing his hands.
And in the next two hours, I learn what it’s like to have a duke strip me of my clothing, stuff my panties in my mouth and fuck me over the counter till I scream myself hoarse. He can be quite a sadistic lover when he wants to be and by the time he lets me go, I’m a spent mess, sprawled on him, exhausted.
“It was just a joke,” I whimper, my body satiated and sweaty. “You have no sense of humor.”
Finn runs his hand down the curve of my spine, resting it on my ass. “Make more jokes next time.”
He helps me up after a while and we stumble into the washroom where I stare in dismay at the love marks bracketing my neck. “Possessive bastard.”
“You called, luv?” He pops his head from behind the shower curtain, smirking.
“Stop looking so smug,” I tell him then I again stare at the marks littered on my chest and I don’t know why they don’t bother me as much as I would expect them to.
Chapter 9
The next few days go by in a flurry of activity.
The Christmas market is being set up and the entire town is decorated from top to bottom, sparkling. The flux of tourists also increases and that means the diner is busier than usual.
It’s three weeks till Christmas now and the B and B is filled to the brim with guests, leaving Aunt Vee with no time on her hands. Finn, who’s integrated himself into my family unit with an ease that is purely him, assists my aunt who sings praises of him.
I sulk at this. “Why doesn’t she just adopt you?”
Finn grins. “Darlin’, you sound positively jealous.”
“I’m not exactly hiding it,” I mutter.
He kisses me and my black mood vanishes into thin air.
The entire town is now aware that Finn and I are dating, if you can call it dating. I’ve discovered that my rakish Irishman has a darkly possessive side. And it thrills me for some reason.
One of the guests, noticed me moving about the house in the morning and he showed up at my diner, flirting and laying on the charm as thick as he possibly could. While Finn hadn’t been there at that particular moment, Danny and Nick, the interfering assholes, made it a point to track down my lover and tell him everything with a second by second byplay and commentary.
Of course, my hot headed Irishman had to show up and brood in a corner the whole day, just glaring at hapless customers. No amount of coaxing or begging would get him to leave. Meanwhile, the two blabber mouths decided to sit in the opposite corner of the room and wait for the show.
I charged them extra for the coffee.
Then, the man of the hour showed up, bearing a rose and sweet words that fell on deaf ears. That was when Finn decided to make his move, vaulting
over the high counter and kissing me senseless in front of the entire diner.
His mouth on me, like always made me tremble in his hold, and the mug in my hand, slipped and crashed to the floor. Later on, I made sure Danny and Nick paid for the damages.
After a smug look at his devastated rival, Finn decided to leave me a disorientated mess, and walk out.
It took me a minute or so to get my wits back together as I growled and flung my apron at Stacy, stalking out to track my lover all the way to his room and attack him.
I was pinned to his bedroom door and fucked seven ways from Sunday, as he made me repeat who I belonged to till I was left a blabbering mess. He was relentless in the way he played my body, as he made sure he had licked and tasted every part of me all while his hands had mapped every inch of skin, branding me as his.
He was a cruel lover that day, dragging out so many orgasms out of me till I couldn’t even count anymore and yet I had never been more satisfied in my life. I couldn’t walk for hours after that and he held me in his arms, peppering me with affectionate kisses and murmuring sweet nothings in that accent of his that had me addicted to him.
The next day, I showed up shame faced and embarrassed as Stacy had tucked her cheek in her tongue and pretended she didn’t know why I was paying her extra for overtime. I had received a small note from the two trouble makers in question which had read, ‘You’re welcome’.
I also didn’t seem to be able to walk straight for the whole of the next day.
If it hadn’t been obvious to anyone before now, Finn had made sure that the message had been received by everyone in the vicinity.
Clara Winter had been thoroughly claimed.
I scowl at him and he smiles back.
I growl, and he swallows my words with a kiss.
He teases me, showers me with affection, takes away my ability to think with his hands and his hot mouth, and I know I’ve already fallen into this pit that I can no longer climb out of.
I have never been so openly adored and sometimes it seems too good to be true.
It’s like one of those dreams that you don’t want to wake up from but there is a stirring in your gut that serves as a warning. I’ve always been tough as I try to live in the moment. So I valiantly try not to think about the fact that this same man who teases me and claims my body at night, branding me with his touch. The man who haunts my thoughts every waking moment ‒ is actually a business tycoon who is bound to return to his world at some point ‒ leaving me, a small town business owner, behind.
