by Wanda Edmond
“Finn Matthews, I don’t like you anymore!”
Kristina leapt up and Finn held his arms still and finally she caught Finn’s hand. When she opened it up, she saw the tiny red box. She held the velvety square container to her ear.
She shook the red square and she heard something rattling inside. “What’s in this?”
Finn bent his dark head to Kristina’s ear.
“I’ll do something for you, if you do something for me.”
Kristina sucked in a sharp breath as she tried to steel herself from her paramour’s lustful seductions. She swatted at him when they boarded their train and found their seats.
Finn grinned at her as Kristina glared at him the entire ride.
“Well? Don’t you want to know what’s in it?”
Kristina glared harder. “No.”
Finn wriggled his dark eyebrows.
Kristina giggled. “All right, I do—.”
Chapter 9
Ian Knight gave his envelope to a courier.
He gave implicit instructions the messenger wait until the recipient read the contents.
Ian walked the corridor surrounding the wing of the Royal Suite. He had one heck of a hangover. He remembered leaving word with the concierge to have an attaché give his apology to the red head. He hadn’t meant to be a prized a-hole.
He understood his tastes were particular.
Ian wanted whom he wanted; and part of that understanding meant he’d had to hone his instincts to uncover what others wanted. His five senses were as sharp as his instincts, and they were telling him to find Kristina and make certain she understood she was his.
Neither apologies nor recriminations, Ian Knight was going to have his stepsister.
He left word with his contact to report to him when she and Finn arrived at Queensbury. Then Ian would set his plan in motion.
***
She felt like her career was turning onto the fast track, and she couldn’t have been happier!
Kristina had texted her expenses, few as she had made to her boss, Elise.
“Oh, it’s so green and sunny here,” Kristina said, as stepped from the train and waved.
Finn waved back, and he turned to give his luggage to their second limo driver.
Kristina had a time trying to convince Finn she didn’t want to know what in his little box. She did, but she wasn’t going to give in—even though he wanted her to!
After giving Bree and the second Syren author their itineraries for the rest of the weekend while she was on the train, Kristina forwarded word to Elise in Spain she’d check in first of the following week.
She’d received a second text before the one she read from Finn that her PR company was preparing a worldwide launch of its rebrand.
“You’ve done wonderfully,” Kristina’s boss, Elise in Promotions, Skyped over phone. “I’m going to give you another new client. His name is Jasper Ross, and he is an artist from SoHo.”
“An artist? Elise, I don’t know anything about the arts. I seek out really talented creatives, and artists too,” Kristina said, after she thought about her first job at Syren.
“Except for your weekend, I noticed you haven’t been using your expense account,” noted Elise.
Kristina walked the ramp from the train with her carryon, and she met Finn at the limo.
“I didn’t want to mix my personal time with the company,” Kristina said, getting into the limousine. She scooted next to Finn and the driver closed the door.
“You are our star promoter for east coast clients,” Elise said. “Use the expense account. Turn in your receipts to Jasmine. I’ll make sure you have everything queued and comped.”
“Wow. I can’t believe all of this.” Kristina said into her phone.
Elise smiled. “They’re perks you’ve earned. Keep in touch.”
Kristina tucked her phone in her carryon and Finn tapped her leg. She turned and she saw Finn grinning. His handsome face and perfect smile made her skin tingle.
“Stop it,” Kristina smiled.
“What?” Finn said innocently.
“You know.” Kristina said and she swatted at him.
Finn laughed as he kissed her hand.
***
Ian stepped out of his Sikorsky and ducked under the blades to circle behind the blast cage.
“Did you bring any luggage with you, Sir?” An attendant at the helipad said.
“No,” Ian replied. “I have an important rendezvous and the only luggage I’ll need is this,” Ian said holding a large white envelope.
***
“Oh, this is marvelous—.”
Kristina plopped down onto plush bedding in a double-occupant suite. The room wasn’t as lavish as her digs at the Four Seasons, but Kristina didn’t expect to have been given such a red carpet treatment her first day schmoozing in PR.
Finn dropped his luggage on the floor and he flopped down onto a queen-sized bed beside her. He inched close to her and he kissed her passionately. When he let her up for some much needed air finally, she gulped a breath, and Finn laughed, grabbing her by the neck and they rubbed noses playfully.
Kristina and Finn sat talking about their lives for hours. They hadn’t remembered to eat, and Finn suggested they see the park grounds for some dinner.
“How can you think about food at a time like this?” Kristina laid her head against the pillows and pouted.
“Like this,” repeated Finn. He circled the bed and he pounced onto Kristina.
“Stop. Get off,” she laughed, her honey brown hair tousled, and her naked legs entwined between the sheets.
“I will if you do the something I asked,” Finn said thickly.
“Oh, that.” Kristina reached over Finn as he flounced onto his back, making the bed bounce.
She could see his dark public hair running from his chest to his hairy thighs. Two solid columns of flesh that had held her captive while he made hot, unbridled love to her.
Kristina marveled at Finn’s girth. His manhood rested over his scrotum, his sex, full, and unfurled. He reminded her a tiger, lounging next to her, ready to pounce. Finn bit at Kristina’s arm as she picked up the little red box.
“Don’t get any ideas. You’re hungry, remember?”
“Maybe I’m nocturnal.” Kristina looked at Finn and blinked.
“You only eat prey at night?” Kristina cocked her brows.
“Keep stalling about that box and you’ll find out,” Finn challenged.
Kristina watched Finn rolled onto his side, seeing his thick snake threatening to uncoil, before it aimed to strike.
Kristina didn’t waste any time fumbling with the velvety square. She’d been seduced and ravaged between Queensbury and the Big Apple until she was tender but satisfied.
I don’t know if I can handle another walk through my garden, Kristina thought, seeing Finn’s thickness start to lengthen and harden.
Kristina hurried and opened the box.
Chapter 10
“Why didn’t you tell me you were thinking about us?”
Kristina picked a long pendant from the little velvet box. It had a diamond on a platinum chain, and the stone glowed in the flicker of the candlelight. Kristina had been amazed when she found out why Finn had gone on ahead to the limo.
“I was making arrangements for us to share our evenings by candlelight.”
“You are so amazing.” Kristina touched Finn’s cheek lovingly, and he surprised her when she saw him smile, sheepishly.
Finn confessed. He wanted to take his relationship with Kristina to the next level. It was tough living in the city without someone to love. He and Kristina got along well enough. He’d hoped they have some kind of spark when found each other again. They hadn’t.
Finn didn’t know how to tell Kristina this would be their last weekend together. When he was waiting for her in the limo, he got a call from his doctor.
His mom was in the Memorial Hospice.
Finn knew his mother had very few d
ays to live. That was when the limo driver handed him a white envelope.
***
While Kristina left the train with her luggage, Finn dialed the number on the burner phone he’d found in the package.
“Hello?”
“If you want to have your mother taken care of, you’ll do exactly as I say.”
Finn looked at the phone warily.
“Who is this?”
“Someone who can set you and your mother up for the rest of your lives, or let you sink to despair, while you watch her fade, hopeless.”
“Who do you think you are? My personal life is private.” Finn started to hang up the phone.
“Would $500,000.00 solve the problem?”
Finn head the figured, he still could wrap his head around it. He pondered what he should do as he sat alone in limo…
***
Whomever he was speaking to knew all about him. Where he worked, where his family stayed and even whom he dated. Finn put his ear back to the phone.
“What do you want?”
“The girl you’re dating. Kristina Layne? I don’t want you to see her again.”
“Listen, I’m not doing any such thing, I lov—.”
“You have twenty seconds. Leave Kristina. Clock’s ticking.”
Finn exhaled, low.
“Truth or consequences. Accept my offer.”
Finn shook his head, flustered. “All right.”
“Good man.” Ian said. “The funds will wire into any account of your choice. Leave the girl. Don’t contact her again. 48 hours.”
The phone clicked and Finn hung his head. He knew what he would do.
***
Ian sat in the Royal Suite of the Waldorf Towers holding a photo of Finn Matthews, 29, a dashing ad man from Boston, hugging his sister, Kristina Layne.
“Beautiful ‘Kris’, he called you.” Ian took the photo and he creased it in half.
Ian ripped the photograph apart. He set the piece with Kristina on it aside. Ian walked to an antique desk and he picked up a crystal vase shaped into a lighter.
Ian flicked the lighter so it flamed. He touched the fire to the photo with Finn Matthews on it.
The paper blazed and Finn’s image faded as the paper curled.
Ian tossed the paper on a silver tray and he looked out over Manhattan. New York really was a beautiful city once he got reacquainted with it.
It will never be as beautiful as you, Krissy, Ian thought wistfully.
He walked back to the silver platter. The photograph of Finn had burned to ash.
“’Beautiful Kris’,” Ian said, mimicking Finn’s adoration of his Kristina.
“The last affection you will ever say, Finn Matthews, paramour.”
Chapter 11
Finn did the only thing he could.
He continued to see Kris through the weekend.
He and Kristina traipsed through the water park and danced at the The Boca Bar. They’d had a blast tickling each other and stealing nibbles of each other’s pizza at Primo’s in Storytown.
When they’d gotten stuck in the roller coaster in the middle of the afternoon, Finn tried not telling Kris what happened before their ride in their second limo. It was strange how the unknown caller knew Finn’s itinerary, when Finn believed he was the only one who could have known about the limousines he’d booked or his weekend travel plans. Kris should hear somebody might have been watching them.
“Kris, I need to tell you something.”
Kristina stared the diamond pendant Finn had given her swing two and fro, as they in sat their seats on a 12-story mega-coaster, called the Boomerang.
“I don’t know if now is the best time.” Kristina said swiftly.
Krissy didn’t know if the blood was rushing to Finn’s head or if he was overcome from adrenaline from their 120 spike in the sky. Because the double inversion cobra roll they’d frozen into had left them—and everybody else, hanging upside-down.
“You think maybe you could fill me in a little later?” Kristina smiled.
Suddenly loose change spilled from somebody’s pocket in another car.
“I see your point,” Finn said.
Kristina turned to Finn and he looked at her, and they laughed.
***
“What a fabulous day!” Kristina dropped onto the bed. She took off her shorts and her T-shirt she’d twisted down her collar that had made her look like a hillbilly.
She’d been stopped for not dressing in proper attire. Until she convinced the park attendants she needed to be properly ventilated. Kristina pointed out the scorching temp during the day, and the attendants gave her a reprieve, and let her sidle in beside Finn, persona non grata.
Thank gosh, because Kristina had run out of new outfits to wear.
Kristina pulled Finn down on top her and she wrapped her legs around him. “Do you know these legs are 30 inches long?”
“What?” Finn said.
Kristina squeezed.
“That is 60 inches of long Kristina legs just itching to get around you.” Kristina rose up and kissed Finn on his lips.
She looked at Finn; he seemed, distant.
“Finn? What’s wrong?”
Finn had to tell Kristina about the mysterious caller. He believed she had a right to know. He was going to when he saw a large white envelope next to the door.
“What’s that?”
Finn picked up the envelope.
“I have no idea. It was there when we got here.”
Kristina lifted onto her elbows, and saw Finn had shucked his Bermuda shorts and tank top. He was fully nude. Mm, what a good-looking man he was, and delicately hairy in so many wonderful places, she mused.
“What’s the big deal what it is, anyway?” Kristina pulled off her hillbilly version of a shirt and she cozied up to Finn.
Finn looked at Kristina. “It’s for you.”
Kristina took the white envelope and she sat on the bed. She pulled out a card with her name. On the inside, were two words handwritten in calligraphy script.
Starlight Observatory
Remember—
Kristina remembered all right. She took the card, dropped it back into the envelope, threw it into the wastebasket, and she hauled the basket outside their room.
“You gonna let me in on what that was about,” Finn asked.
“Look. It’s been a fun time. You’ve had fun. I’ve had fun—.” Kristina took Finn’s hands and she walked backwards bumping against Finn when she knocked against the bed.
Kristina and Finn tumbled into the sheets, laughing, when Finn brushed curls of her honey brown hair from her face.
“You are incredible. How will I ever live without you—?”
Live without her? Kristina sat up.
“What do you mean?” Kristina said, worry creasing her forehead.
“Nothing—.” Finn said. He grabbed Kristina by the waist and he dragged her onto the bed. “I want—to—tickle you!”
Finn pounced on Kristina digging his fingers into her tummy. She wiggled and screamed around in the bed, tangling herself and Finn with the sheets.
The loved they made gave Kristina chills.
She felt how hot Finn felt as he thrust inside her. He’d withdraw from her center, then he’d press him into deeply, methodically…savagely.
Kristina felt the bed shudder with every thrust—until she realized she was who was trembling, not the bed.
Finn loved her with such strength. His taut pectorals and washboard abs flexed as he bore down on her, carrying her to tumultuous climax. They sweat from their passion, Finn drawing her near and holding her so very close. Like he never wanted to let her go.
***
Kristina closed her eyes, willing herself not the think about the thing that had torn them apart during the night.
A white envelope—nothing more than three words that had made Kristina think about a time she believed was long past. And Finn had known something was wrong.
