Totally His

by Erin Nicholas

  She squelched all the emotions stirred up by those thoughts. She wasn’t staying in Boston, running a barely-making-it theater, so that her dad would have a place to come to between wives. She wasn’t. Not even deep down in her psyche. Probably.

  Maybe that was why she’d always avoided therapy. She didn’t really want to dig around in the depths of her thoughts and emotions. She didn’t have enough AC/DC to work through all the self-directed rage that might result.

  “Did you know that the police think maybe one of us set the fire?” she asked.

  He nodded. “Of course they do.”

  “That doesn’t bother you?”

  He shrugged. “Not much I can do about it. The theater that I’m a fifty percent partner in had a fire. Makes sense they’d wonder.”

  “Has someone talked to you?”

  “Yep. Stopped me outside of here yesterday.”

  “But you said you didn’t do it and they believed you?” Sophie pressed.

  “I said I didn’t do it. Not sure that they believed me.” Frank seemed legitimately unconcerned about all of it.

  “Because you didn’t do it, right?” she asked.

  Frank sighed. “I told you, I didn’t do it. Do you know how much work insurance fraud is?”

  Of course. He hadn’t set the fire because it would be work. Not because it would be a terrible thing to do.

  Sophie shook her head and started for the door. “Okay…so…try to stay out of the way. I have a show coming up.”

  “Yeah, heard about that.”

  She turned to face him. “You did?”

  “I heard something about casting a bunch of firefighters? I think that’s great. Should bring in some big money.”

  Sophie narrowed her eyes. “Money for repairs. That’s the whole reason they’re doing it, Frank. They’ll know if the money doesn’t go back into the theater.”

  Frank just shrugged.

  “And there are cops too,” she added. “Not just firefighters.” Not that him taking half of the money that came in was illegal. Technically it was his. It was just…an asshole thing to do. Then she frowned. “What do you mean you heard it? We just decided to do it last night and just had the auditions tonight.”

  “I saw the end of the auditions and put two and two together when they were all talking about work.”

  He’d seen the end of the auditions? “How long have you been here?”

  “Where am I going to be?” he asked, swinging around to lie back on the couch again.

  Right. “So you just hung out in the theater?”

  “Back row center,” he said. “I even had popcorn.”

  He’d eaten her popcorn too. Sophie rubbed her forehead. “So can I expect that you’ll be dropping into rehearsals as well?”

  “You never know,” he said, turning his attention back to the TV. “It’s probably time I get more involved with the theater. Since I’m back and all.”

  Terrific. Not that she’d ever longed for Frank’s presence, but this would be the absolutely worst time for him to be around. She didn’t want him to get to know her friends or the Kellys or the firefighters who were here doing a good deed or…anyone he could potentially swindle. Which was…pretty much anyone. It wasn’t only the women who were at risk. Frank had messed with plenty of other people over the years too. Those were smaller things and much less frequent—a dinner here or there with the idea Frank would pay next time and he just never got around to it, a couple of “loans” that never got paid back, a poker game that just magically went in Frank’s favor every hand—but Frank always came out better than his pals.

  “Frank, I would really appreciate it if you’d stay out of the way and out of the rehearsals.”

  He just waved a hand at her. “No worries, Soph. It’ll all be fine.”

  She couldn’t deal with him. Because he honestly didn’t care what she thought or what she wanted. “Whatever,” she muttered, and turned on her heel.

  She made her way down the hall to the lobby, her mind whirring.

  It would be very important for her to downplay her relationships during rehearsals, in case Frank was hanging around. She couldn’t let on how much she loved Angie or how close they were. He’d hone in on that in two seconds. She couldn’t let Kiera and Maya come help out. She had to be friendly but not warm with the guys. This had to be all business. Frank couldn’t get the idea that anyone here had a soft spot for her. So she couldn’t let on that there was anything between her and Finn.

  She rolled her eyes. That one didn’t matter at least. He hadn’t auditioned. Maybe he’d come help with the repairs again, but he wouldn’t be around all the time. And they wouldn’t be kissing as Tony and Angel. Which was good. Because she wasn’t sure she was a good-enough actress to act like that was just a part. And according to Angie, Finn didn’t hide his feelings well at all. And whether or not it was a good idea, there was real chemistry between them. Very real.

  “Your door was unlocked again.”

  Sophie gasped and spun, her heart racing.

  “Finn!”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  As if she’d conjured him with her thoughts, there Finn was, leaning with his shoulder against one of the thick white columns on either side of the lobby as if he owned the place. The columns were decorative, but as she took in the sight of him beside it, her imagination made him into a Roman centurion using his strength to hold up the crumbling walls and ceiling of a cathedral as she scrambled to safety.

  Good grief. Sophie reined in her fantasies and gave him a smile. “You came to check on the lock?” Her mind really wanted to run with that as well. Finn as her bodyguard. He’d have to be with her 24-7. He’d have to be here at the theater but also at home with her…

  “I came to talk to you. But I wasn’t pleased to find you in here alone with the door unlocked.” He pushed away from the column with a frown.

  “What did you want to talk about?” she asked. She wasn’t about to admit that she wasn’t alone.

  He came toward her until he nearly stood on her toes. “You need to lock that damned door.”

  Ah, no distracting him. She hadn’t really thought that would work. She nodded. “Yeah. Okay. You’re right.”

  She had so many people in and out of here that she just didn’t bother a lot of the time. And sometimes she really did forget. She’d had self-defense training at Maya’s martial arts studio, and she and Maya and Kiera practiced a lot. She also had a mean right hook, a strong roundhouse kick, Mace, and a stun gun. And lots of places to hide in the theater. She simply wasn’t that concerned about her safety. This was home. She felt completely comfortable here. But yeah, Finn had a point.

  And maybe Frank had left it unlocked. She’d almost forgotten for five seconds that he was now living here. She resisted sighing or growling.

  Fidgety because of the way Finn was looking at her, she crossed the lobby to the panel of switches for the overhead lobby lights. It felt as if he was trying to read every one of her secrets and vulnerabilities. And as if he’d be successful if she gave him a full minute of eye contact.

  “So, what did you want to talk about?” she asked, hitting the off switch.

  The overhead lights went out, but the security lights by the front door gave them enough illumination to easily move around and see one another.

  “The play.”

  The play he thought of as a community service project. Except that he hadn’t even bothered to audition. Whereas he’d not only taken in a bunch of dachshunds, he’d even kept one.

  Sophie shook that off. She was not jealous over the fact that he’d gotten fully involved with other projects but hadn’t with the theater after all. She didn’t need his charity. She didn’t need his help, and she’d rather not think about him feeling sorry for her.

  “What about it?” she asked, fussing with the leaves on one of the plants by the office door.

  “I…had to work tonight.”

  “Did you?”

  “I picked up
a shift. Because I thought that it would be better than coming to audition.”

  “You picked up a shift to avoid auditioning? You thought your brother would drag you down here or something?” she asked, aware that she was more annoyed about the whole thing than she should be. The auditions had gone well, and Colin and a guy named Mike had showed some promise. She figured she’d need to decide between the two.

  “I picked up a shift because I wanted to audition and I was trying to keep myself from doing it.”

  “Because your mom asked you not to?”

  “Yes. Partly. And because I’m more the behind-the-scenes guy than I am a spotlight guy. And because—” He took a deep breath. “Because she’s already taking care of you and…”

  He trailed off as Sophie came to stand in front of him again.

  She felt that strange draw when she got within five feet of him. That feeling that she could tell him anything and everything. That feeling that he was there for her. Not in the sense of him agreeing to be there to help with the theater cleanup or to make the play happen. But there for her. There because of her somehow.

  The dim lighting wasn’t helping. She should have left the lights on. Sure, he might be able to see her eyes and expressions more clearly then, but there was something about the dark that revved her imagination to intense stupidity.

  It was because nighttime had been her dreaming time as a kid. She’d lie in bed and come up with story after story. They were all romances, and nearly every one of them involved her dad and current stepmother being in love forever, staying together, even making Sophie some siblings. And family vacations and huge blowout birthday parties and parents’ nights at school when she had two parents sitting in the front row. And a dog.

  Sophie reeled all of that back in somehow and swallowed hard.

  He had trailed off with “She’s already taking care of you,” implying that it had crossed his mind that he might need to take care of her.

  “What’s your dachshund’s name?” she asked.

  She’d clearly surprised him, but he answered. “Rosie.” The slight curl to his mouth was definitely a sign of affection.

  “Was Rosie the runt of the litter?” Sophie asked. He seemed the type to pick the runt.

  He looked puzzled. “No.”

  “But you kept her, out of all of them, for a reason.”

  He nodded slowly. “They were all rescues, and they were with me for about two months. She’d…had it the hardest. She needed the most stability. I didn’t think that sending her to a new home just as she’d gotten settled would be good for her.”

  She’d had it the hardest. Sophie swallowed. Yeah, Finn Kelly was a good guy. Too good. So good that he would want to be involved here because Sophie was a little like Rosie.

  “What did your mom tell you about me?” she asked.

  Finn blew out a short breath. But he was the always-honest one. The one who couldn’t hide his feelings. “That you’d had a lot of loss in your life and that you need a mom more than you need a guy.”

  Sophie realized Angie hadn’t really told him anything too personal. At least not in detail. She nodded. “My mom died when I was two. I lived with my grandmother for about four years after that. Then my dad came and got me. I had five stepmoms growing up. My dad just moved from one woman to the next. So I got used to loving people and then having to say goodbye.”

  Finn was watching her intently and she got the sense that he wanted to hug her. Which was a very strange thing to have a feeling about.

  “The worst thing about it,” she went on as Finn just stood there being very…there. She couldn’t describe it better than that. Solid, strong, big, and showing no inclination to leave or even blink, “was that every time he sweet-talked another woman into falling for him and inviting us into her house and life, it was because I needed it. So not only did he use me to get close to them, but I was the reason he kept doing it over and over.”

  Sophie was appalled that she’d spilled all of that. She’d never told anyone but Angie that she felt guilty about all of that. But she couldn’t stop. She supposed she could chalk it up to Finn being Angie’s son and a naturally good listener. But she knew that wasn’t it. She felt comfortable with Finn in a way that she couldn’t remember feeling in a very long, and lonely, time.

  “And I picked my third stepmom out,” she blurted. “She was my fourth grade teacher, and I loved her, and he’d just broken up with my third stepmom and we were staying with a friend of his, and I was sleeping in a sleeping bag on the floor. His carpet smelled like cigarette smoke and dirty socks and so I started staying after school to work on projects and Frank would have to come pick me up because I’d miss the bus. After they’d met a couple of times, I told Frank that he should ask her on a date and…a month later we moved in with her and she became my stepmom six months later. And it lasted for five years—longer than any of the others—and I thought maybe she would be the one that stuck.” Sophie took a deep breath and blew it out. “And I’ve felt guilty about that since I was fourteen.”

  Finn continued to just watch her. And she wanted him to hug her. She knew that being wrapped in those arms would make her feel very safe. For that moment she didn’t care that he might only do it because he felt sorry for her. She’d bet Rosie jumped right up into his lap and licked his face and didn’t care one bit if he was keeping her and giving her a home and a safe haven only because he pitied her.

  But then Sophie shook her head and took a giant step back, away from Finn. She did not want pity. She didn’t need it. She was out on her own now, and yeah, okay, Frank was sleeping on the couch down the hall and eating her leftovers, but she had a great place to live now and nothing smelled like cigarettes or dirty socks, and she didn’t have to say goodbye to anyone she didn’t want to say goodbye to. And she didn’t like Finn making her feel like she wanted to be taken care of.

  “So,” she said from a safer distance, “I guess I just thought you should know that I’m very much like Rosie. Or it will seem like I am. I’m someone your mom cares about and who seems kind of pathetic and has had a hard time. And that’s what’s making you feel like you want to be involved. But I’m okay. I’m able to take care of myself, and I have other people who can be there for me, and while everything you feel and do is very nice and noble, we just both have to remember that this is all just…mixed-up emotions. It’s not real.”

  “What isn’t real?” he finally asked. They were his first words in a while.

  “This…attraction,” she said. “This feeling that we’re being drawn together. I think it’s just misplaced chivalry on your part.”

  He took a step forward, narrowing the space between them. “And what is it on your part?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Why are you feeling this attraction to me?”

  Okay, so he knew it was two sided. She swallowed. “I think it’s probably your arms.”

  He huffed out a short laugh. “My arms?”

  She shrugged. “It’s probably the whole carrying me away from danger the first night we met or something. But yeah.”

  “So it’s purely physical on your side of it? While I’m feeling the misplaced urge to keep you safe and make you happy?”

  Damn. The words keep you safe and make you happy were some of the most seductive words she could have imagined from him. But she hated that she was feeling a little like a dachshund at the moment.

  “I think it feels like it’s physical and emotional for both of us when really it’s just”—she shrugged—“a mixture of a bunch of stuff like my daddy issues and your protective streak and us both loving your mom and maybe wanting something we can’t have and that we met that first night at the fire before we knew who the other was—” She stopped as he moved in closer, and she found she was backed up against the wall. “Finn.”

  He reached up and cupped her face in his hands. “Yeah?”

  “What are you doing?”

  He leaned in. “Auditioning for the
part of Tony,” he said.

  Then he kissed her.

  * * *

  Well, holy hosannas, Sophie thought as Finn’s lips met hers.

  This kiss felt like the culmination of days of wondering and waiting. It was almost a…relief. It was as if she’d needed this and hadn’t even known it.

  Sophie ran a hand over the back of his head. His hair was short and it tickled her palm deliciously. He had one hand on the back of her head too, threaded through her hair. The other went to her hip, and it felt so right there that she gave a little sigh.

  Sighing was clearly exactly the right thing to do, because Finn’s grip on her hip tightened, and then he was pressing his body against her. Then he tipped her head to the side and deepened the kiss.

  And damn. He had the part. She didn’t even remember what part or what play at the moment. But Finn Kelly could have whatever he wanted from her.

  He ran his hand from her hip to her shoulder and then down again, cupping her butt and holding her still as he pressed into her. He skimmed his tongue over her bottom lip, and when she moaned, his tongue stroked over hers.

  She ran her hands over his shoulders and down to his biceps, the huge, rock-hard biceps that were holding her still for his delicious onslaught on her senses, and she sighed happily. Yeah, her attraction was partly about his arms.

  Finally he lifted his head and stared down at her, breathing raggedly. Long before she was ready to break things up. Disappointment and a sharp pang of need hit her, and Sophie blinked up at him, racking her mind for ways to get more of that.

  Give him the lead and take the part of Angel.

  Well, that was definitely one solution. Angie had written a lot of kissing into that script. In fact, in a couple of places, things went a little beyond kissing. Staring up at Finn now, Sophie realized that it would be the easiest part she’d ever played. Because, at least during those scenes, she wouldn’t be acting.

  “I’ve never done this before. How am I doing?” His voice was husky, and he hadn’t let go of her yet. His big hand was hot on her butt, and she was hit by the urge to feel it with no clothes between them.