“You’re not going to lose me,” I assured him seeing pain and heartbreak in his eyes, causing my own chest to grow heavy with ache. “But this isn’t really about the singer talking to me or wanting my attention, is it?” I pressed.
Finn looked to the floor. “I just have to protect you because…”
“Then protect me, but you can’t go around shoving everyone to the ground who talks to me,” I explained. “And you have to let me live. I understand your need to protect me but you can’t prevent me from living my life.”
“Trust me, I don’t want to prevent you from living your life. That’s not what this is about.”
“Then what is this about, Finn?” I bent at the knee and ducked under Finn’s arm. I crossed the room and turned to face him. The light through the dusty windows shone on Finn’s face when he turned to face me. He looked tired.
Tormented.
“I don’t want to scare you. I’m sorry about pushing that kid. I know you don’t like violence. I never want to remind you of your father,” Finn grumbled.
The words from my mother’s letter rang through my mind as if she were next to me right there in the library, whispering the words in my ear.
I have learned in my life that there are two kinds of people. The weak and the strong. Those who are truly strong try and lift others to make them feel just as strong. Those who are weak do their best to make others feel as helpless as they do. Surround yourself with the strong.
Fall in love with the strong.
“You could never remind me of my father! He wasn’t just a controlling alcoholic who liked to use his fists more than his words.”
Finn cringed.
“My father was the devil himself, preaching down to me and my mother from a pulpit of lies. You’ve never once made me feel small or embarrassed or afraid of you. You’re absolutely nothing like my father. Not on your very worst day.”
Finn’s shoulders dropped like he was relieved to hear me say those words. But there was more. I felt it filling the space between us.
“This is about Jackie, isn’t it?” I asked.
Finn’s eyes shot up to mine.
“It is,” I confirmed without him saying a word. “You want to save me because you still feel responsible for not being able to save her. Is that it?” I took a step closer, feeling frustrated that he still blamed himself.
Finn peered down at me with a million emotions behind his beautiful blue eyes, each one more heartbreaking than the next.
“I have to protect you.” Was all he managed to say. His eyes darted to an open book on the table. I leaned over and read the chapter heading.
DEPRESSION AND GENES
HOW SUICIDE CAN BE HEREDITARY
AND WHY
I pointed to the book. “Is this what this is all about? You’re afraid I’m going to kill myself like my mother did?” I took a step forward. “Like Jackie did?”
Finn flinched.
“I don’t want to die! If I wanted to die I would have stayed under my father’s roof until he either beat the will to live out of my body or killed me himself. But I came here. Because I want to LIVE.”
Finn looked away, but I stood on my tiptoes and pulled him to face me, pressing my chest against his. “You deserve better than me,” he said, his voice a whisper.
“That’s not true,” I argued, “but even if it was true,” I brushed my lips over his, “I choose you.”
“I just don’t want to lose you. I don’t think…” he paused and cupped my face in both of his hands. “I don’t think I could survive that again.”
We were so close we were breathing each other in. Feeling each other’s anguish. Hurt. Pain.
“I don’t want you mistaking your guilt over what happened to Jackie with whatever this is between us,” I said. “Jackie was important to you, Finn. It’s okay to talk about her. It’s okay to talk about her with me. It’s okay to still love her, but don’t let how you feel about her confuse how you feel about me because I’m not her. Sure, I’ve been hurt, but I’m not depressed. I’m stronger for what I’ve been through. I’m stronger because of you.”
Finn’s hands dropped from my face and skated down my arms.
“I’m not a ghost and I won’t compete with one. It’s not possible.” I pulled away and took a few steps back, needing space to think. To breathe.
“Whatever this is?” Finn asked, too calmly. Too quietly. He came up behind me, spun me around and walked me backward until my butt was against a table and I had no choice but to prop myself up and sit on it so I wouldn’t be crushed against it.
“Whatever this is, makes my heart beat fast and my mind race,” Finn growled. “Whatever this is has me questioning how and why someone like you came into my life. You’re beautiful, Sawyer, inside and out. You shine like the fucking sun. You’re innocent and warm and bright and everything good in this world. You brighten something in my heart that’s been broken and dark for a very long time.” He grabbed me by the waist and pulled me against him. “Do I still feel guilty about Jackie? Yes, I do. But since I met you the reason why I feel guilty has changed.”
“How?” I asked, breathlessly, feeling the power of both his body and words as they both pressed against me.
“I could never move on before because I felt like if she couldn’t, then I shouldn’t either. But now? Now I feel guilty because,” his nose brushed mine, “as much as I loved Jackie, things were never right between us. And we might have grown into adults together, but our relationship was juvenile at best. Still just two kids trying to make shit work on our very best day.” He dropped his forehead to mine. “I know that now and it’s not JUST because I love you…”
It’s not just because I LOVE you.
All the breath from my lungs left with a whoosh I could almost hear. I sat there with my mouth agape, my heart beating out of control and my thighs trembling.
There was both pain and love in his voice before he crushed his lips to mine. “But, because I love you more.”
Chapter 37
Sawyer
Finn thrust his hips against me and I threw my head back with a gasp.
“That gasp is mine. This mouth is mine. YOU. ARE. MINE,” Finn rasped.
As much as his words stirred something in the depths of my body, something in my mind wasn’t sitting right.
“I don’t belong to anyone, Finn,” I argued, breathing hard. “I’m not a possession. I can’t be owned.”
“You’re right. You’re not a possession,” he said. “But you DO belong to me. I may not own you like some car or a house, but you ARE mine.” He placed his hand over his chest and lowered his voice. His eyes gleamed. “The same way my lungs or my heart is mine. You are a part of me, Sawyer. And in that way, you do belong to me.”
I felt the fight leaving me and my body meld against his.
“Tell me you’re mine,” he said, his words whispered across my neck. His fingers trailing up my thighs, pushing my dress up with them.
My body hummed with awareness. With want. With NEED.
“Tell me,” he demanded, grazing his teeth over my collarbone.
“I’m yours. I’m yours!” I admitted on a cry. I pulled Finn’s head up so I met his eyes. I needed him to see the truth in my words. “I’ve always been yours.”
A guttural sound vibrated from deep within Finn’s throat. “I need you,” he groaned, his lips descended on mine. His tongue sought entrance as he devoured my mouth like he was invading it.
Claiming it.
Owning it.
Finn’s hands were everywhere. Under my dress, kneading my breasts, then they were lifting it up over my head before tossing it to the floor.
Finn unclasped my bra and wasted no time pushing me back onto the table. “So fucking beautiful,” he moaned before licking his way around each of my nipples. The feeling shot directly between my legs and I felt myself growing wetter and wetter as the need built up inside me to an entirely new level.
Finn lifted me up
off the table and lowered me to the floor, tugging off my panties in one quick motion.
He parted my knees with his hands, opening me up to feel his rigid hardness against my sensitive skin through his jeans when he crawled over me and kissed me deeply. His mouth devoured my lips, our tongues dancing together, melding like they belonged intertwined. He released my mouth only to kiss and lick and suck a hot trail down my body until he paused with his mouth hovering just over the throbbing need between my shaking thighs.
Every single thing that Finn was doing to me I felt not only within my body, but in my mind, in my heart. He wasn’t just making me feel, he was opening my eyes and it was like for the first time I was able to see clearly.
Finn licked my center in one long languid stroke sending a jolt of pleasure pulsing through me. It was so powerful I arched off the floor, the muscles deep in my core pulsed.
“You taste incredible,” Finn groaned, and this time when his lips connected with my sensitive flesh he not only licked, he sucked. Lightly placing a thumb and index finger on each side of my opening he pushed his fingers together and covered my sex with his mouth, sucking and licking in a front to back motion that had me squeezing my eyes shut. Colored light danced behind my eyelids just like lightning although I wasn’t running from this fear.
I was running toward it.
Toward Finn.
Finn licked me faster. Sucked harder. The pleasure was so intense I hadn’t realized I was arching my back until Finn reached up to hold me down by my hip while he continued to send me closer and closer to an edge I didn’t know existed until him, yet every time he made me come it was more intense than the last.
“That feels…” I heard myself say, my voice deep and smoky, filled with the intensity of everything I was feeling but I couldn’t bring myself to finish my sentence. “It feels…”
Finn lifted his mouth, leaving my wet folds exposed. My insides contracted at the loss of contact. He pulled off his t-shirt by the back hem and tossed it to the floor, exposing his ridiculously defined shoulders and biceps, his many rows of sculpted abs that led all the way to the exposed V poking out from faded jeans hanging low on his hip. His eyes were focused between my thighs at the wetness he’d caused. His eyelids heavy, his gaze so intense I shivered.
My mouth watered at the sight of him and my fingers itched to touch him. I sat up and trailed my fingertips down the many ridges of his torso. Finn kissed me again.
“Fuck, Sawyer,” he groaned against my mouth, palming and kneading my breasts, making my nipples ache. “I want you,” he moaned between kisses. “So fucking much.”
“Then take me,” I breathed.
“It doesn’t have to be now,” Finn said, his neck corded. “It doesn’t have to be right here.” I could tell he was on the brink of his control.
“Finn,” I said, gazing up into his eyes and not seeing guilt or sadness there like it was when I first met him. Only desire and love shone from his beautiful blue eyes. “I’m yours.”
Finn didn’t waste time. He reached for his belt and unbuckled it, popping the button on his fly and pushing his jeans down over his toned butt cheeks. His massive erection sprang free and the intensity of our connection continued to grow. The humming was now a loud buzz of electricity between us.
Finn lowered himself down on top of me between my legs. His hard chest against my soft breasts. The feeling of his warm soft skin surrounding his long hard shaft pressing up against the nerves surrounding my opening was a feeling like nothing else. My entire body was alive with sensation both inside and out.
“You’re so fucking wet,” Finn said, looking down and watching as he rubbed his thick shaft through my glistening folds. I could only nod. Finn lowered himself down onto me and lowered his hand to tease my opening with his fingers. He pushed one long finger into me and I jumped, seeing stars of bliss. “Shit. You’re really tight, Say.” He kept the finger inside me, rubbing my inner walls and creating a new kind of sensation that burned within me.
“I want to feel you,” I said, reaching for him and wrapping my hand around the soft skin of his shaft. “Inside me.”
Finn groaned and his eyes snapped to mine. He withdrew his finger and positioned himself at my opening, rubbing it through my folds and sending sparks shooting through me.
He took my mouth with his, kissing me deeper than ever before.
Finn teased my opening with a slow swivel of his hips. I didn’t know how much more I could take without passing out. “You. Are. Mine,” he grated out through clenched teeth.
“Yes!” I cried.
The cords of his neck strained as he began to push inside me. He kissed me again as he stretched me from the inside out. At first it was just a burning sensation that grew as he reached deeper and deeper, but then his lips left mine. “I love you, Say,” he whispered against my lips before he surged forward and broke the final barrier separating us that felt like I’d been sliced with a jagged knife from the inside.
Thankfully the feeling was brief and within seconds turned back to a slow burn.
“I’m sorry,” Finn apologized. He lowered his lips to my nipple and sucked on it until I felt myself pulsing around him from the inside.
“I…I don’t know what I’m doing,” I said between heavy breaths, closing my eyes tightly.
“Open your eyes, Say,” Finn ordered.
When I did, he met my gaze. “You don’t have to do anything. You just have to feel. Feel me. Feel this between us.” He began to slide out of me slowly before rocking back in until he was buried deep inside of me as far as he could go.
I’d never felt so full.
My body or my heart.
“Holy shit,” Finn ground out. “You feel… incredible.” He kissed my lips. “You are incredible.” Then he moved again. Slowly at first. Pulling out and pushing back in, creating a rush of pleasure even more intense with each stroke. My channel clamped down around him and his shoulders tensed.
“This is everything, Say. YOU are everything.” Finn began to thrust harder and faster. I couldn’t help the moan that escaped my mouth when a blinding light of pleasure began to build within me, sending me closer and closer to the edge.
It was a depth of pleasure, of love, I’d never felt before. It wasn’t just sex. It was us. Connecting.
Loving.
Being.
“Do you want more?” Finn asked, and I could tell by the rasp in his voice and the tightness of his shoulders that it was taking everything he had to hold back.
He thrust into me and I cried out in pleasure, arching my back. “I want…I want it all!”
With a growl, Finn began to thrust faster and faster, harder and harder until I was sure my body was going to spontaneously combust from being unable to process the sensations that were setting my body on fire.
I lifted my hips, arching my back and met him thrust for thrust because I may not have known what I was doing but I knew what felt good and to me, Finn being inside me as deep as possible was what felt best.
Like he was made to be there.
It was as if it didn’t matter how deep he was inside of me, it wasn’t deep enough.
I had a feeling it would never be deep enough.
Finn lifted my legs so my knees were bent against my chest. “I’ve thought of you like this a thousand times since we met.” He entered me again hitting me at an angle that made me scream over the sound of the thunder booming outside. “You’re better than I ever imagined. You are everything to me. You make me want to be better. You make me better.”
My eyes began to sting. He slowly moved in and out of me, keeping his eyes trained on mine. Neither one of us willing to break our connection. I barely blinked as the first tears I’d cried in years fell down the side of my face.
Finn leaned down and kissed my temple, wiping my tears away with his lips.
With his love.
“Every single part of you tastes so good,” he murmured. His expression grew pained. “I thought you said you
didn’t cry?”
“Not for years. These are happy tears. They’re because of you. They’re for you.”
“Say,” he groaned, his shoulders tensing. His voice scratchy and deep.
The pressure in my lower stomach began to unfold, releasing a shockwave of bliss throughout my body as my core contracted and Finn’s name tore from my lips. The tears continued to flow as my body erupted into a fireball of endless waves of pleasure I didn’t know I was capable of, yet wanted to experience over and over again from the second it grabbed hold of my body.
The same way Finn had grabbed a hold of my heart.
“Say, oh fuck. Say!” Finn shouted, pushing into me rougher and deeper. He stilled, groaning, coming in long spurts I felt to the very depths of my soul. The pulsing heat of his release caused me to gasp and tighten around him, riding out the last wave of my orgasm while milking the last drop from his.
Finn rolled us both over, pulling out of me slowly and adjusting me against him. His erection was still hard, wet and hot, sticky against my skin. He kissed my temple and wrapped his hand lightly, but possessively, over my throat. “Mine,” he whispered again, squeezing my throat lightly. A gentle reminder that wasn’t necessary.
I was his.
I’d known it for a long time. Long before I’d admitted it to myself.
That night Finn made sure it was a fact I’d never be able to forget.
Finn
I couldn’t tell her in words how I felt, so I’d told her with my body. I worshipped her with my mouth. My fingers.
My cock.
I was her first.
Her first everything.
It was a good thing I wasn’t planning on dying anytime soon because there was no doubt in my mind that after taking Sawyer’s virginity on the floor of the library that I’d be going straight to hell.
I couldn’t bring myself to feel bad about it though. I didn’t regret it. Not a single moment of it. My only thought after watching her come was how soon I could make her come again.
The Outskirts Duet Page 19
