Page 1 of Never Too Late

Part One

Finn

Chapter One

Sex with Cillian King was never anything less than gut-wrenchingly spectacular and today was no exception. He was laughing when he finally lifted his head, the sound a joyous melody that gouged a line into my chest with a blunt knife and waggled it around a bit.

Force of habit had me reaching up to brush a lock of sweat-dampened hair back from his brow. He beat me to it, tucking it behind his ear as he rested his elbows on either side of my head and gazed down at me. “You, Finlay Prescott, were like a man possessed today. What got into you?”

“Are you saying I’m not usually good in bed?”

His lips quirked up at the corners. “I’m saying no such thing. I wouldn’t dare. You’re usually a ten out of ten, but today…” He let out a low whistle. “Today, I’d give you an eleven. At least.”

Eleven out of ten. Cillian was never stingy with compliments. That’s what made the rest so difficult. Words were nothing without actions to back them up. At least that’s what my friendstold me every time I spilled my guts about Cillian to them.Talk to him, they said.Tell him what he’s doing wrong.

Yeah, talk to him. They made it sound so easy. And it wasn’t like I hadn’t tried. I had, on more occasions than I could count. Cillian was always so in demand that interruptions invariably prevented me from speaking.

And if I was honest, I feared being laughed at, of him leveling me with an amused look and asking me what I’d expected when I’d hooked up with the CEO of an international company. He’d started it from the ground up and nurtured it into the hugely successful thing it was today, many of their clients household names. King Enterprises was his baby, his lifeblood, and I was just… Well, I wasn’t entirely sure what I was to him.

I’d thought I knew. I’d thought we were heading toward something long-lasting—until a nagging sense of unease had settled in. It had started off as a niggle, something easy enough to ignore. But then it had grown, pushing itself to the forefront of my mind and demanding to know why I was letting someone treat me the way he did.

Cillian bent his head to drop a soft kiss on my lips and I couldn’t stop myself from wrapping a hand around the back of his neck to make the kiss last longer. If this was the last time I ever got to kiss him, I wanted to remember it. I let my hand stray down his back as we kissed, following the ridges of Cillian’s spine until it turned into the swell of his arse. He had a body most men would kill for, a room converted into a gym in his swanky Knightsbridge flat at least partially to thank for that.

Thoughts of Cillian’s flat reminded me we weren’t there. Neither were we at my more modest flat where, in contrast to Cillian’s gym, I didn’t have so much as an exercise bike, never mind a spare room to stick it in.

I rolled my head to the side to take in the view. Even though the alcove hid the bed where we lay, I could still see the cornerof Cillian’s huge mahogany desk. The bed was for when he pulled such long days that going home wasn’t worth it. He had everything here: clothes, a shower, a small fridge. None of those things stopped this from being his office. And the sad truth of the matter was that we’d had sex here far more times than we ever had in either of our respective flats, Cillian frequently squeezing me in between appointments. I let out a hiss as he reached down to pull out of me so he could get rid of the condom. “Sorry,” he said.

“For what?”

A slight furrow appeared on his brow. “For hurting you.”

Now, or in the past few weeks? Physically? Or emotionally?I didn’t say any of that. That conversation had been my whole reason for coming here today, but starting with such an antagonistic statement would do nothing but put Cillian on the defensive. We’d never argued. Probably because arguments required spending more time in each other’s company than we did. Whatever the reason, I intended to keep that record intact. I’d been silent too long, but Cillian gave no sign of having noticed, already off the bed and extracting a fresh suit from the cupboard where he kept spare clothes.

I swung my legs off the bed, sweat still drying on my skin. “I wanted to talk to you.”

“Hmm…?” Trousers on and shirt buttoned, Cillian had a look of concentration on his face as he knotted his tie in the mirror.

I started putting on my own clothes. “I’ve been thinking of making some changes. In my life, I mean.”

That got his attention. Cillian’s hands fell away from his tie as he swung to face me. “Like what?”

I took a mental deep breath. “Lately, I’ve been feeling…” I paused as the phone on his desk trilled. Maybe he’d ignore it this time and I’d get to finish what I was saying.

Cillian held his hand up. “Hold that thought for a second. I have to take this. I’m expecting an important call.”

And there it was in a nutshell. Further proof, if any were needed, that the conclusion I’d reached in the last few days was correct. There would always be a call more important than what I had to say. And if not a call, a meeting. Or a client. I came bottom of the list, and I wanted… No, Ineededto be top of that list. Not all the time. I wasn’t that selfish. But at least sometimes, and I didn’t think my expectations were that ridiculous. But I couldn’t recall a single occasion where he’d put me first. “Cillian,” I said, not even trying to keep the pleading out of my voice. “If I could just…”

He continued reaching for the phone and brought it to his ear. “One minute, sweetheart.”

The casually dropped “sweetheart” was like an arrow to the heart. Would he have stopped in the middle of fucking me if the phone had rung then? I wished I could say with any certainty he wouldn’t have, but I wasn’t sure. I finished dressing as he conversed quietly with whoever was on the other end of the line, only the occasional word reaching me with Cillian’s back to me. I glared at it, wondering if he’d sense it and turn. He didn’t.

“Yeah, I’ll hold,” he said, his voice louder. He did turn then, his gaze flitting from my fully clothed state to the still rumpled sheets. If he thought I was acting like his maid and making the bed before I left, then he was sadly mistaken. “It’s been too long,” he said, his gaze still on the sheets. “Two days is too long.”

“Four days, actually,” I corrected.

Whether it was the waspishness in my tone or the fact that I rarely corrected him on the differing way time passed in his world compared to mine, it had him frowning again. “Really?”

“Really,” I said. “We were supposed to have dinner on Wednesday, but you cancelled because something came up.”

---