by Daisy Allen
“You naughty loud children!” Mati came running over, with a pitcher of water. “Why are you making such a disturbance?”
I told her the story and she whooped with laughter, as Finn sat back looking unimpressed.
“Oh, my boy, so finally someone got one over you, huh?” She winked at me. “It’s good to be kept on your toes, more interesting that way, no?” She patted him on the shoulder and he snarled playfully at her as she walk away, still chuckling.
I happily munched at another spoonful of meatballs as I watched the emotions play out across Finn’s face.
“Evil wench. So you moved into your current apartment 4 years ago, was that around about the time you started working for Larry?”
“So many questions!”
“Yeah, trying to keep your mouth busy so you don’t eat all the food.”
“There are other ways to keep my mouth busy,” I retorted back, feeling happy and content from the good food and more comfortable in Finn’s company.
“I’ll hold you to that. So...?”
“Oh! Well, after I graduated I had so many big dreams, that all came crashing down on me once I entered the world of trying to get a job in Manhattan with no experience.”
“Oh geez.”
“Yeah, no kidding. I worked all sorts of jobs, but the worst was as a secretary for this accounting firm. Ugh they were so dodgy, always late with pay and probably wouldn’t have if I didn’t make a fuss about it. My manager was a complete bitch who thrived on belittling all the staff under her. Anyway, they were trying to close a deal with Cabot Industries, and Larry was the in charge of it, so he’d have a chat to me every time he came for a meeting, then, I’m not sure what happened, but one day, he stormed out of the meeting room, declaring that the deal was dead and then he grabbed my wrist and said, ‘And I’m taking her with me!’ And I’ve worked for him ever since. He changed my life.” I smiled thinking of him and how, even though this being with Finn was surreal, I missed him on this trip.
“Wow. He sounds like a good guy.”
“He is.” I nodded emphatically, “I hope you get to know him now that you’ll be working with him.”
Finn just smiled and watched me rummage in the bowl of soup for a beef bone to gnaw on and laughed at my excitement when I caught it. “You like your food don’t you?”
“Does it show?” I mumbled around the bone.
“In your enthusiasm? Yeah, I like it.”
“No, I meant, show on my thighs. I can’t diet, it’s just not in my nature. I don’t really drink, I don’t do drugs, I work 24/7, and food is my only true vice. I’ll just have to keep buying bigger jeans.”
Finn frowned and put down his fork and stared at me for a moment. “Kara. Put down the bone and listen to me.” He said seriously.
I did as he asked, confused at the change in mood.
He reached across the table and grabbed my hand, his eyes locked on mine. “You are fucking gorgeous. Don’t ever think anything but that about your body. You drive me fucking insane, every minute that I’m with you, the way you look, the way you move, oozing sex. I’m constantly having to think of my grandma in lingerie to stop my cock from being permanently hard around you. If you weren’t enjoying your meal so much, I’d have bent you over this table and be fucking you right now. I just wanted you to know that.” He let go of my hand but continued to look at me.
How does someone respond to that?
You don’t. You just hope he’ll always feel the same way.
***
“Au revoir, Mati, we’ll be back in a few days!” I waved to her as she escorted us to the door.
“Ma cherie, je l’espere, I hope so. You are, as they say, a sight for my old, sore eyes. Not like this ugly man,” she waved at Finn dismissively and then yelped when he kissed her on the cheek. “Go, go! You are scaring off my customers.”
“Oh my god, I am so full,” I moaned, rubbing my bloated stomach as we walked into the night. The air was cool, and the breeze felt soothing and soft on my face flushed from the warm restaurant and spicy food.
“Over here, Kara,” Finn took my hand and led me around the corner.
I wandered over, sighing long and contented. The air, so different from Manhattan and even Dublin where we’d just been a day ago, smelled of history. The dust from the cobblestones and buildings, scenting the air with stories hundreds of years old.
We walked along the street, hand in hand, in silence. Listening to the cars on the main road jostling for space and the sound of locals mixing with tourists come from all around the world to congregate in this space that was all about fun and feast.
Finn pulled gently on my hand as we crossed the road to a long stretch of metal fence surrounding a park.
“This is the Jardin Medieval, I love it.” He pushed open the gate and ushered me inside. Pressing his fingers to his lips to silence me, he led me to a dark corner on the side of the park, pushing our bodies into the shadows.
“They’re going to close soon, but they rarely check too hard to see if anyone’s still in here. We’ll have the whole place to ourselves.”
It felt so clandestine, huddled against a bush with Finn, his breath sweet and spicy against my cheek, his hand still grasping mine. I couldn’t help but press myself against him a little closer than really necessary.
We stood for a moment, getting acquainted with the dark, listening for sounds of people moving around us. There were none.
“Kara.” He whispered, his mouth just inches from my ear,
“Hmmm?”
“Why aren’t you seeing anyone? Why aren’t you married?”
We were too close to pretend I didn’t hear his question, too close to even ignore it.
“I guess,” I shrugged even though he couldn’t see me, “I guess, I just haven’t met anyone I wanted to be with. Or anyone who wanted to be with me.”
“We both know that’s not true.”
“It’s sweet of you to say so, Finn. But you don’t know me.”
“I do.” He insisted.
“No, you maybe knew me, but you don’t know me.” I replied more harshly than I meant to.
He paused, and took a deep breath. “No, I do know you. What makes you you.”
We grew quiet as we heard the guards make a final round of the park for the night before slamming the gate closed, with us still inside.
The pause in conversation gave me time to think of my answer, and I decided that whatever was going on between us, there was no use in being anything but brutally honest.
“You want to know why I’m not in a relationship? Why I haven’t married? Why I’ve never been with anyone even remotely long enough to even consider marriage? It’s because of you! YOU! You say you know what makes me me. Well, YOU made me me, who I am today. I was seventeen, Finn. I was madly in love with you. And then you played me, on the most important night of my young life, you teased me, you flirted with me, you made me think...think that there was something between us, and then you just tore my beating heart out of my chest...and left me standing there, alone. In the night.”
I pulled away from him and ran toward the shelter of the small gothic chapel in the middle of the garden. I could hear Finn running after me as I ducked under the stone arch leading into the darkened entrance. He caught up to me, grabbing my arms from behind and spinning me to face him, pushing me hard against the cold, stone wall.
“God, Kara, please, please forgive me, forgive me, sweetheart, just forgive me” He pleaded, his voice breaking as he stared into my wet eyes.
“YOU BROKE MY HEART, FINN!” I yelled at him, and watched him flinch.
His hands, still strong around my arms, pulled me away from the wall, forcing me to stare into his eyes. “I broke MY heart that night too, Kara. I was broken after as well.” He dropped his hands from my arms and stood in front of me, head lowered, dejected.
The anguish in his voice twisted my heart and I clutched at my chest, trying to sooth the coil of pain knotted between
my lungs. I wanted to believe, god, I wanted to believe him so much. I wanted to believe that that fateful night had hurt not only me but him as well, if not as much, than at least in some way, that it had left an impression on him too.
I wanted to believe when he drove away from me, when he got home that night, when he woke up the next morning, whenever he thought back on it, that he regretted what could’ve happened between us, regretted that he had hurt me, changed me and my attitude towards love forever.
His face showed his torment as he spoke, but I couldn’t let myself believe him. The last 15 years had been spent hating him, playing his words again in my mind every time a man got close.
“What happened that night, Finn? I mean, the whole thing doesn’t make any sense to me. You say that you broke your heart as well, but you’re the one who pushed me away, DROVE away! Just because I didn’t want to have sex with you. But how could you blame me? We were 17! I was still a virgin and we’d NEVER had any sort of relationship that would suggest I would sleep with you, and then suddenly I’m supposed to give it up after one weird and crazy night? And don’t blame it on being drunk, I’d seen you drunk before, it never made you act the way you did that night.”
The questions hung in the air, echoing in our ears even in the silence of the deserted garden.
Finn didn’t speak right away, but I’d waited 15 years for an answer, I could wait a little longer.
“I really am a monumental idiot.”
“Finn,” I reached up to stroke the side of his face, coaxing him gently. “Talk to me, tell me, it won’t change what happened, but it might change what happens next, for the both of us.”
He paused, I could see him trying to form the words. “Do you know what it’s like to secretly be in love with someone for 10 years?”
Was he kidding?
“Yes.” I did.
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do. I was in love with you.” It was time I admitted it to him.
“I was in love with you.”
His declaration, spoken so softly, stabbed me hard right in the heart.
“Shut up, Finn. Don’t mock me, we’re beyond that now.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You know I was in love with you, and now you’re just using the same sentiment to excuse your behavior.”
“Have you lost your god damn fucking mind? I just told you I was in love with you for 10 years!”
“But you weren’t! I was the one in love with you!”
“Oh my god, you have lost your god damned fucking mind.” He pushed away from the wall, holding his head in his hands as if trying to make sense of the moment.
I was having the same problem. What the hell was going on? Why was he saying these things? The pounding in my ears was making his words warble in my head.
He came back and placed his hand on either side of my head, forcing me to look at him. “Listen to me, you crazy, infuriating woman, I, Finn O’Reilly, was so fucking crazy in love with you, I couldn’t even be in the same room with you for 5 minutes without losing my mind. When you agreed to go to prom with me, I couldn’t handle it. And I’d made a pact with myself that I was going to tell you how I felt about you even though I knew you were too good for me. So that night, I was so nervous around you, I could barely speak. So I drank. And I drank, and I drank. And I fucked it all up.” He stopped for a moment to drag the air into his lungs. “But Kara, trust me, baby, believe me, even if you don’t believe anything else in this universe, even if you don’t believe in the moon, the sky, the earth, even if you don’t believe in God, believe me when I tell you, I loved you from the moment I set eyes on you.”
Oh my God.
“Then...then why did you...?”
“I don’t know why I did any of it. I was weak and an idiot, too proud, too worried about my reputation, too afraid of you rejecting me.
And there you were, looking like an angel, letting me kiss you, something I’d waited a decade to do. I couldn’t control myself. I knew it was too fast, but by then I was too far gone. I couldn’t admit what an asshole I was being so...so I lied. I told you I didn’t want you, and even as I said the words, as soon as I saw the disappointment, the hurt, the disgust in your eyes, I could feel my own heart tearing apart in my chest. I had to get out of there as fast as I could.”
“Finn.” I didn’t have any other response. His words took me back to that moment 15 years ago, both of us sitting in his car, panting for breath from our first kiss; standing at a fork in the road, unaware that the next words out of his mouth would have us running down separate paths.
“I...I wish you’d said something. Instead of...you know.”
“Yes, I know. I wish I had too, I wish I’d said it by the bench that night, when I held you in my arms, dancing to the music of the breeze. It was the perfect moment.”
I couldn’t help but smile, remembering swaying to the music of time passing by, how I shivered in his arms, touched that he even remembered. “It was the most perfect moment of the night.” I agreed.
“No, Kara. It was the most perfect moment...ever.” He lifted my chin and I caught the glisten in his eyes just as he gently dropped his lips on mine.
Every time he kissed me, it was like it was the first time again. My mind went blank as every sense was focused on Finn’s lips against mine, his breath against my face, his cheek rough against my own. It was no wonder I’d never gotten close enough to any other man, nothing had ever compared to this. And maybe no one ever would. Maybe this was all I’d ever have of him, and maybe that would just have to be enough.
“No, Kara, I’m sorry,” Finn pulled away. “I didn’t mean to kiss you, I’m sorry, I told you, I can’t help myself around you.”
“Finn? Shut up.” I surprised us both with my words. “Just shut up and kiss me, you idiot.” I pulled on his shirt, reaching up on my tip toes and kissed him hard, crushing any protest dead on his lips and sucking the breath from his lungs. I wanted to feel at one with him, if this was the last memory of us I’d ever have.
“Oh god, Kara, sweet Kara,” he mumbled against my mouth. “God, I’ve missed you.” His hands were everywhere, in my hair, against my face, roaming my body. He slid his arms around my waist and pulled me in hard against him, my body conforming to every one of his curves.
“Finn.” I moaned, as he bent me back, his tongue on my bare neck, his lips on my pulse. I wanted him. There. Then.
I reached between us and fumbled with his zipper, the sound of the metal tab sliding down muted by the sound of our breaths.
I reached in and stroked him over the fabric of his briefs.
“Fuck, Kara...wh-?
“Shhhh. I want you, Finn. Right here, right now. In this moment and not caring about anything else. But if you don’t want this, then stop me.” I reached in further and ran my thumb over the tip of his hardness.
His breath hissed through his teeth as he undid his belt and popped open the button on his pants.
“Ohhh Kara, just...whatever you do, don’t stop touching me, baby.”
“I won’t,” I promised him, as I pulled his cock free from his briefs. He twitched at my touch as I wrapped my hand around him and squeezed, pulling him to his peak length.
His tongue was wet against my neck as he nuzzled me, his breath catching in his throat as I stroked him faster, his hand reaching under my skirt to graze over my sex. Why did it never feel like this with any other man? I thought, as my knees threatened to buckle as he started to probe me.
“Fuck. Kara, I told you, I can’t resist you, especially when you’re hot like this for me.”
He pushed my hands away and slid his hands around me, cupping my ass, before lifting me up to his waist height, pressing me against the wall. His hardness pressed against me, and I barely had time to catch my breath before I felt him push my panties aside and slide deep inside me.
“Oh, Finn.” I wrapped my legs tight around his waist, his body crushing mine against the stone
walls as he thrust into me. I rocked my hips trying to meet him, somehow unable to get enough of him, the deeper he was inside me, the more I needed to feel him fill me up.
“God, you are so hot, Kara, you drive me fucking insane, baby,” Finn growled, his hands digging bruises into my fleshy ass as he pushed and pulled me on and off his cock, drilling me into the wall. “Look at me, sweetheart. Let me see you.”
My hands came up to lock around his neck, and I forced myself to keep my eyes open, wanting to burn the look in his eyes into my mind forever. I saw my cheeks, flushed with lust, reflected in his irises, even as I fell headlong into the black hole of his pupils. I might not have believed everything I’d heard that night, but I knew in that moment that Finn wanted me, lusted for me, was lost in the act of fucking me.
My orgasm built hard and fast, I’d never felt my pussy clench so tight involuntarily around the thickness inside it before. My body lusted for Finn just as much as my heart and mind did.
“Finn, god...Finn. Make me come, baby. Make me come with you inside me.”
“Grrrrr, oh shit,” Finn grunted, his hips driving harder against me, plunging his hard cock all the way into me. “My sweet girl, come for me, I’m waiting for you.” He bit down hard on my neck, and sent me over the edge.
“Ohhhhh, yes. God, Finn, yes.” I shook with an almost painful pleasure, curling my toes as the climax exploded from my core to every extremity of my body.
“Kara, you are so beautiful, baby, you are my undoing.” Finn groaned as he crushed his lips against mine and pressed me hard against the wall, thrusting over and over into me. His body shaking in waves, as he pulled away, staring into my eyes as he emptied himself inside me.
“Finn,” I whispered to him, in awe of how he could make me feel this way. He collapsed against me, pinning me against the wall, still holding himself inside me as his hands supported my legs still wrapped around his waist.
“Shhh sweetheart, we’re going to stay like this forever.” He let his head fall onto my shoulder.
“Ok.” And I would’ve. Forever.
