Page 11 of Breathless

Oh, how he wanted to. Hovering over her on the bed, with Fiona in nothing but her blue bikini panties and white tank, Thoreau had never been so tempted to take what he needed.

It had been too long since that night she’d given in to him after calling things off with Wyatt. That night he’d taken her right here in this bed. Again and again, until they were both hoarse from shouting. Until they were too weak to make it to the kitchen to refuel. Until he knew every inch of her body as well as he’d known her moods and the expressions on her face.

His parents hadn’t raised him to take something that belonged to someone else, but that’s exactly what he’d done. Fiona would argue with that, tell him she made her own decisions, and she’d be right. But at the time, he was pretty sure Wyatt wouldn’t see it that way. And Thoreau had to own that.

It didn’t matter that she’d said she’d broken things off. She’d done it before, but she’d never been able to stay away from Wyatt for long. So Thoreau had gone in with his eyes open, knowing that what was between Fiona and her fireman wasn’t going away anytime soon.

What made it harder was that he couldn’t even hate the guy. In fact, he was having the opposite problem.

The few times Wyatt had relaxed enough around him to be himself, Thoreau had seen that there was a lot more going on beneath the handsome, blond, irreverent surface than the Finn wanted people to know. And the unguarded way he looked at Fiona when he thought no one was watching told him what he felt for her was so much more than casual attraction.

Thoreau had had a front row seat to the Wyatt and Fiona show. That first flirting. The back-and-forth, push-and-pull of their attraction and Wyatt’s persistence. He couldn’t deny how much the man cared about her. If he didn’t, Thoreau wouldn’t hesitate to keep her up a little bit longer and show her how much he’d missed having her beneath him.

She smiled, reaching up to trace the small scar under his chin most people couldn’t see. “What are you thinking about?”

He lowered his head to kiss her neck. Her cheek. Light. Keep it light. “I’m thinking you need to go to sleep, Fi. And I have to check on something at work. If I kiss you the way you want me to, both of us might forget that.”

She leaned into his caresses, humming like a purring kitten and causing his cock to jerk in response. “You’re probably right.”

“I usually am.”

She laughed, turning her head to kiss the forearm beside her. “Fine, genius. I’m sleeping. Thank you for the soup and the comfy bed.”

He winced as he made himself leave her side, his erection straining against the now-snug fabric of his slacks. “This is your room, Fiona. Your home, whenever you want it. I’ve told you that.”

She nodded, slipping into sleep a second later as if she’d turned off a light. He had no idea how she did that, but he’d seen it before. She wouldn’t be waking up anytime soon.

He stood there watching her longer than he should have. Thinking about everything that had happened in the last few months. Her leaving. The fire. The next steps he needed to take.

It wasn’t Thoreau’s nature to not go after what he wanted. And he wanted this. Taking care of Fiona and having her with him. Loving her.

After all these years, he knew her well enough to realize that, as insightful and loving as she could be, her personal issues with commitment and trust were more than just a lifestyle choice. She wasn’t so much a free spirit as she was a runner. It was why he hadn’t been insulted when she left his bed in a barely-disguised panic after spending the night with him. Why he hadn’t responded to Wyatt’s glares or unspoken challenges when he discovered she’d confessed the truth to him before she left for California that first time.

When someone got too close, she pushed them away. And the more she wanted someone, the faster and farther she ran. Fiona wanted both of them. Wyatt and Thoreau. And it was for so much more than just sex, or she wouldn’t have had to fly all the way across the country just to get away from them.

Twice.

She wasn’t the easiest woman to love, but she was the only woman he wanted. His one. He had more than a sneaking suspicion that Wyatt Finn felt the same. And since no one had asked for pistols at dawn or a street race to win her affections, that meant it was time for him to make his big move. Something to shake things up and get them out of this pattern the three of them had been repeating for the last few years.

He was tired of the tug-of-war that always chased Fiona away because she was unwilling to choose between them and Wyatt’s stubbornly closed mind made her unwilling to vocalize her true desires.

It was time to put his plan into action.

***

Thoreau relaxed a little as he walked through the narrow, brick-lined basement of Finn’s Microbrews toward the large stainless-steel tanks that held his latest creations. He loved coming here, and not just because it was the one area of his life he had zero doubts about.

It still gave him a thrill to think about how quickly they’d turned Seamus Finn’s hobby into a full-fledged business that was putting them both on the map in the local craft community. He couldn’t help but be proud of what he’d helped to build here.

Technically they were still at the brew pub stage with some modest outside sales—mostly because Seamus had stopped his insanely rich sugar daddy of a husband from interfering with his wallet—but Thoreau was already working out his plan to expand their production scale and market penetration over the next few years.

Thoreau had fallen in love with making beer almost as soon as the idea had been planted in his head by his brother, Hugo, when he’d mentioned that the owner of Finn’s pub was looking for an assistant brewmaster to start making signatures beers for his place.

He’d already been in school, had never even considered brewing beer until that moment, but after a few hours online his life had changed its trajectory forever.

A few years, several certifications and a business degree later, and he was here. Standing in what used to be the basement of Finn’s Pub, but was now a business he co-owned with Seamus Finn.

It wasn’t just the satisfaction of being a business owner that excited him. Thoreau loved having the freedom to create his own beers, along with the family-themed specialties the pub was known for.

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