Hopelessly Devoted to You

by Jill Steeples

  All the time his fingers traced the features of her face with one hand while his other hand worked its magic along the length of her body. She wasn’t feeling in the least angelic though Finn was definitely the devil in disguise.

  This was wrong, totally wrong. They weren’t supposed to be an item. She didn’t want to give him false hope, but then again…

  He still believed they were an engaged couple, getting married in a few weeks’ time. How much more false hope was there to give?

  ‘Did you really not know who I was?’ she asked, leaning back from his all-pervasive, overpowering masculine presence, desperate for some distance: emotional and physical.

  ‘Nope. It was a lovely surprise though. I’m one hell of a lucky guy.’

  ‘Well, not so lucky that you had that accident in the first place.’

  ‘Yep, but it happened, it’s in the past. All that matters is that I’m home now and you and me, we should be making up for lost time.’

  He didn’t wait for an answer; his lips pressed urgently against hers, his tongue prising open her mouth, making her emit a sigh of pleasure. He pulled away, gazing into her eyes with a flaring passion.

  ‘Come on, babe, let’s go through to the bedroom.’

  ‘Sorry, Finn.’ She came up for air, feeling her cheeks burning hot, the telltale signs of desire blazing a trail across her chest and up her neck. ‘I really don’t think I can do this.’ Her voice sounded unnaturally high even to her own ears.

  ‘Why not? Don’t you fancy me any more—is that it?’

  ‘No, it’s not that.’ Truth be told, she was feeling more turned on than she could remember. It was only sex, she told herself, and she’d had sex hundreds of times with Finn. He’d always been such a generous and attentive lover. But not like this. It felt different. Wrong. The man who was currently squeezing her nipple tight between his fingers seemed like a stranger. A very compelling stranger.

  ‘Could you please just stop that for a moment, Finn?’ she said, swiping his hand away. ‘It’s incredibly distracting.’ Eminently pleasurable too, but she wasn’t about to tell him that. ‘The doctors said there would be a period of adjustment and they were right. But what you have to remember is that we are all adjusting to this, Finn. Not just you. But your parents. And me too.’

  She took a couple of deep breaths, trying to get her head and her body under control. He was the patient; she was the nurse. She needed to remain in charge here.

  ‘The thing is, Finn, you’ve changed, and that’s not a problem, in fact it’s perfectly understandable in the circumstances. All I’m saying is this new you is going to take some getting used to.’

  ‘Really?’ Finn pulled backwards, holding up his hands in the air, before leaning back against the sofa and crossing his arms in front of his chest. ‘Thanks. You’re making me sound like a household appliance here. I’m sorry, Rubes. Should I leave, come back when I’m “normal” again? Would that suit you better?’

  ‘No. I didn’t mean that. It’s just…’ What could she say? That although he looked like her boyfriend of ten years, walked like her boyfriend of ten years, was occupying the same flat as her boyfriend of ten years, he very definitely wasn’t the same boyfriend that he’d been before the accident.

  Ignoring the Hugh Jackman impersonation, which actually was almost impossible to do, everything else seemed altered about him too: his manner, the way he held himself, the way he looked at her.

  It was Finn, but it wasn’t the man she knew.

  She found herself fascinated by his mouth and the way it now chewed over his words, his sentences coming out in one long and fluid motion. His mouth hadn’t changed in appearance, that was an impossibility, but the wide, full-lipped gorgeousness of his mouth had taken on a new animated life-form. She found herself transfixed by his lips, which now had a propensity to curl up on one side when he smiled, trying to reconcile what she thought she should be hearing with what was actually emerging from Finn’s mouth.

  Not only was his accent disturbing in a way that spoke straight to the base of her stomach, he seemed to have acquired a whole new vocabulary too. He called her Rubes now, which sounded much more intimate than Ruby, and his conversations were littered with terms of endearment that sounded ridiculous coming from his lips. ‘Hey, babe’ or ‘baby’ or ‘gorgeous’, all accompanied by that lazy smile. A killer combination.

  She didn’t like it. Not at all.

  It sounded ridiculous. Totally cringey. Totally un-Finn-like, but somehow totally compelling. Every single time Finn uttered any one of those words all reason deserted her, leaving her body a throbbing, molten mess.

  And if that wasn’t unsettling enough, what was more worrying to Ruby was the subtle but very distinctive shift in his mood, which flittered in and out of the shadows but was very definitely veering over on to the dark side. He’d always been direct and succinct, but now that directness had turned into an abruptness bordering on arrogance. There was a spikiness in his attitude that left her on guard, not knowing how he might react from one moment to the next.

  Finn had always been the voice of sense and reason in their relationship, the nurturer and the carer. He’d fulfilled all those roles, she realised with a pang, and now she sensed a vulnerability in him that had been absent before. She’d always been the flaky one, the one who got herself into scrapes that Finn would inevitably have to extract her from, but now their roles were reversed and she realised she would have to be the responsible one; for the time being at least.

  ‘It’s just what? Hey, forget it.’ He shook his head at her. ‘Why don’t you go? I’m not sure why everyone thought I needed looking after. I don’t. I’m not a bloody invalid. Get out, Ruby.’

  She wavered a moment, looking into his eyes, her heart beating uncontrollably. This was her chance to take exception, to engineer a row and storm out, to plant the seeds for the gradual disintegration of their relationship, instead of having to take the difficult way out and tell him all over again that she didn’t want to marry him.

  It was only a fleeting moment though because what struck her with a force that surprised her was that she didn’t want to go anywhere. Her head was muddled and her body was downright contrary ignoring everything she was telling it. She couldn’t think about the future right now. The wedding and the honeymoon and all those plans they had in place would have to wait until another time. She knew she’d have to discuss it with Finn, but now wasn’t the moment. Right now, there was no other place in the world she wanted to be than here at Finn’s side, helping him through this.

  ‘Don’t, Finn. I didn’t mean anything by it. I want to be here with you. To look after you.’ She took hold of his hand, smiling up into his face, his eyes intense, but unreadable.

  ‘Good.’ He pulled her towards him, his hand finding the curve of her breast, his lips hovering over her own. ‘So you do still fancy me, then?’

  She nodded. It wasn’t a lie. And she really ought to stop this habit of over-thinking things.

  ‘Even better. Because you know what’s going to make me feel a whole lot better still?’

  She opened her mouth to say something, but he didn’t wait for her answer. Instead he kissed her so passionately she could be in absolutely no doubt as to what he was thinking.

  Chapter Nine

  It was only the next morning that Ruby wondered if ‘no contact sports’, as advised by the doctors, included long, intensive and eye-wateringly enjoyable love-making sessions.

  Still, it was far too late to worry about that now, the damage had been done in every conceivable sense and the last time she’d seen Finn, because through her sleepy haze she realised there was now an empty space next to her in bed, he’d been looking pretty damn fine.

  A smile spread across her lips. She couldn’t remember a night like it before and she could only put it down to their heightened emotions, both trying to deal with this unusual situation in their own individual ways.

  Finn had been like a man possessed: hu
ngry, passionate and driven by a fire that blazed in his eyes. Ruby had been touched deep down inside by his overpowering need for her and shocked and thrilled in equal measure by the intensity that radiated from every pore in his body.

  She’d been consumed by a whirlwind of feelings—guilt, regret and pure unadulterated lust—but once she’d given into the moment and Finn’s all too persuasive touch, then she’d clear forgotten about those first two emotions and allowed herself to be swept away on the lust thing.

  Finn had always been a good lover: sensitive and tender, almost too focused on pleasing Ruby, yet remaining in control at all times. Last night, he’d shown no control and his priority had been satisfying his own hunger, which had been a revelation to Ruby and a huge turn-on too. She’d witnessed a vulnerability in him that touched her to the core.

  Now lying in bed with the duvet tangled around her body, feeling exhausted before she’d even contemplated moving out of bed, she wondered what had actually happened there last night. It was like waking up in a foreign country after a one-night stand with an exotic stranger who you knew you were never likely to see again, but realising that the memories of the night would stay with you for ever.

  ‘Tea?’ Finn was standing in the doorway to the bedroom, mug in hand, dressed in grey jogger bottoms and a black singlet, looking as though he’d just fallen out of bed.

  ‘What are you doing up?’ she said, sitting up and pulling the duvet around her tighter. ‘I should be looking after you, not the other way round. Thanks,’ she said, running a hand through her hair, feeling ridiculously self-conscious in front of this man she’d known for years. A heat flushed her cheeks as she took the proffered mug.

  ‘I told you. I don’t need looking after.’ He gave a smile, not an entirely natural one, in response to her crestfallen expression, she suspected. ‘I’m going out.’

  ‘Out? Out where? You can’t,’ she said, glancing at her watch. ‘It’s only nine o’clock.’ Although what that had to do with anything, she didn’t know. ‘Remember, what the doctors said. You’re not to overdo it in these first few days.’

  ‘There’s not much chance of that. No alcohol. No driving. No contact sports.’ He raised an eyebrow at her. ‘Doesn’t leave much, does it?’

  ‘It won’t be for long, Finn. Once you go to your next check-up I bet they’ll give you the all-clear and then you’ll be back to doing all those things.’

  He shrugged as though it didn’t bother him one way or the other. He picked up his trainers from the corner of the bedroom, before pushing them onto his feet, throwing her a challenging gaze.

  ‘I’ll come with you.’ She leapt out of bed and yanked up her knickers from the floor, the ones she’d so hastily abandoned the previous night. She put one leg through one hole and attempted to get the other through the other hole, which was proving much more difficult than she’d anticipated, as she hopped around the floor rounding up her other stray clothing.

  ‘No, really,’ he said firmly, holding up a hand at the sight. ‘You stay here.’ He paused, his gaze lingering over her near-naked body, his mouth twitching at one side. ‘You’ve put on weight.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  Funny, she could have sworn he’d just said something about her weight.

  ‘Your stomach. And arse. And tits.’ His hand make a sweeping curve movement for each of those body parts so she could be in absolutely no doubt as to what he meant.

  ‘Right, well, yes. I think I might have. A bit. Thank you for pointing that out.’ She felt her cheeks redden with embarrassment as she quickly grabbed the duvet to her body. She didn’t know what offended more, the fact he’d mentioned her weight or the way he spoke so openly about her bits. The old Finn would never have mentioned her arse. ‘It’s been a stressful time.’

  She always turned to food in bad times. Come to think of it, she turned to food in the good times too, but possibly she’d been overdoing it lately. Hugo hadn’t helped. He always made sure she had a dinner at work, usually a big bowl of pasta followed by the dessert of her choice—she never could resist a pudding—then she’d pick up a bar or two of chocolate at the hospital and when she was at home she’d fill up on bread and cheese. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror and pulled her stomach in.

  Finn raised his eyebrows, the tiniest of smiles hovering on his lips.

  ‘All right,’ she snapped. ‘You don’t have to be so rude about it.’

  ‘I wasn’t being rude. I was just stating a fact.’

  ‘Yes, well, you might need to keep your facts to yourself.’ She jumped back into bed and pulled the duvet round her, feeling weirdly vulnerable, crossing her arms over her chest.

  Finn shrugged and turned his back on her.

  ‘See you,’ she heard him say before he left the room. The front door slammed shut and she felt her insides lurch.

  What was that all about? She peeked beneath the covers and grabbed a roll of flesh from her stomach. Uggh. It wasn’t pretty, but who the hell did he think he was passing comment about her body? After everything she’d done for him these last few weeks. Besides, he didn’t seem to have any complaints last night.

  If she was being honest, she supposed she was feeling deflated that he hadn’t wanted to pick up where they’d left off last night. He’d been incredibly attentive, wholly focused on her and her body, and yet this morning he’d barely shown her any interest. It was as though that intense magical experience had never happened. Already the memories were slipping from her mind, taking on a dreamlike quality.

  The temptation to lie in bed all morning was a whole lot less tempting now that Finn wasn’t here to share it with her. And now that he’d made derogatory comments about her body too. Instead she pulled on his T-shirt, taking in a breath of his scent as it slipped over her head, feeling surprised by the effect it had on her body. That same feeling of surprise that was making a habit of catching her out these last few days.

  Why now, she asked herself, when she hadn’t felt like this about Finn in years? Probably because she realised they were living on borrowed time. In those awful days after the accident she hadn’t known whether he would live or die, and that had brought her feelings for Finn into startling focus. Now, with the reassurance that he was back, the huge sense of relief she felt was gradually giving way to something else, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.

  She wandered over to the window and looked down the street. Where the hell had he gone?

  It was only yesterday he’d returned from hospital. Despite his protestations that he was fine and didn’t need any looking after, she knew otherwise. Whatever was going on inside his head, and really she had no idea what that might be, physically he wasn’t in tip-top shape either. Although last night’s performance in bed would suggest otherwise, she suspected he was about to crash at any moment now. He’d spent three weeks lying flat on his back. The doctors had warned he might suffer from muscle weakness and exhaustion. And she was supposed to be looking after him. Making him cups of tea and breakfast. Providing soothing words of comfort. Getting him fit and well again.

  Already she’d failed on the tea and sympathy front.

  She ran her hands down the length of the grey slub silk curtains, tidying them into place, before straightening the duvet and plumping up the pillows on Finn’s magnificent king-sized bed. She wandered into the living room thinking she’d have a tidy-up, but then remembered this was Finn’s flat and even without his mum having been in a couple of times in the last week, cleaning over the cleanliness, there would be no reason to find it in any other condition than perfectly spotless. His OCD tendencies meant that everything was annoyingly just so; just like Finn.

  The perfectness of the flat had always made her feel slightly uncomfortable, although she’d never let on as much to Finn. Buying his own place had been high up on his to-do list and once he’d established himself at Richardsons, taking advantage of the huge salary they paid him even as a junior member of staff, it hadn’t taken
him long to put aside enough money for a healthy deposit. Ruby didn’t have any say in the selection of the flat, nor had she expected to, it was his place after all, but Finn had surprised her one weekend and presented it as a fait accompli in his inimitable style.

  Ruby couldn’t help but be impressed by the scale and luxury of his first home. She’d swooned and made admiring noises about it because she’d known how much it had meant to him, but if she was being honest the shiny worktops and the cream fabrics and the expensive leather sofas weren’t to her taste at all. She’d never been able to fully relax or felt fully at home here either. Well, until last night perhaps, she thought with a smile.

  Finn’s place was in sharp contrast to Ruby’s flat, which she rented from a housing association, and although it wasn’t in the best part of town, it still managed to have a nice villagey feel about it. There was a real sense of community, not only in her block of flats, but also in the surrounding area with a good variety of shops along the high street. She loved being able to walk outside her front door and find exactly what it was she was looking for that day. There were newsagents, bakers, grocers, international food stores, boutiques, hardware stores, a launderette, a pawn shop, although thankfully she’d had no cause to use that one yet, and a dry cleaner’s. Some of the shop owners were her friends and if she was ever feeling low she only had to wander along the high street and get a cheery wave or exchange a few friendly words with one of her friends for her mood to be lifted.

  Inside her flat was just as eclectic as outside, with its shabby-chic feel. It wasn’t messy, more cluttered, with its overflowing book shelves, scented candles dotted around the surfaces and bold-coloured cushions. As completely different from Finn’s place as you could expect to be.

  Even though her flat was smaller, the kitchen facilities pretty basic and the shower irritatingly temperamental, they’d always spent more time round at Ruby’s flat. It felt like a home to Ruby in a way that this pristine palace never had. Without Finn here she had nothing to do. She sighed, conflicting emotions assaulting her senses as she pulled out a mug from one of Finn’s self-closing cupboards and popped in a spoonful of coffee.