Page 214 of Chaos

Hands wrap around my ankle and tug, guiding me between his spread legs until my bent knees touch his chest. He dips to kiss one, humming against my skin. “You knitted me a sweater.”

I snort—quite the damning evidence. “I knit lots of people sweaters.”

“People you love.”

“You’re kinda ruining my declaration.”

“Sorry.” Calloused fingers glide up my calves and down my thighs, and up my body until they find my cheeks and cup them tenderly. ‘Go on.”

Taking another deep breath, I wrap my hands around his wrists and hold him tightly, grounding myself as some part of me, a scared, frigid part I don’t think will ever go away, begs me to shut up. To not say, “I love you. Like a really terrifying amount. Like more than I thought I was capable of. More than I can comprehend. And I wish I could say it was easy and lovely and sunshine and fucking rainbows, but it isn’t. Not for me. It’s really, really hard because I don’t know what I’m doing, I don’t think I’m equipped to do it, I’m so scared I’m gonna get it wrong, but I’m trying. Not trying to love you—fuck, Finn, I triednotto, and I’m sorry if that’s shitty and unromantic, but everyone I love leaves me or doesn’t love me enough or hates me at some point, and I didn’t want that to be you. No, I’m trying to love youright. Enough. The way you deserve.”

“I know exactly what I deserve.”

“I hope not. Because I think it’s more than me.”

“There is nothing more than you, my love.”

My eyes shutter closed.

“My love,” he repeats, his breath warming my cheek. “My sweet, angry love. I think I loved you the first time you told me to fuck off.”

A wet, rasping laugh escapes me. My eyes open again.

My love.

Myfuckinglove.

50

She’s not even a little bit like what he expected.

She is everything and more.

It’sthe rough pant of my name that does me in.

A desperately whinedLottie, quickly followed by a honey-sweet, whimpered, “I love you.”

And I’m a goner. An orgasm rips through me like a goddamn tornado—Finn just about fucking rips through me too, furious thrusts coupled with a tight grip holding my hips flush against his, keeping his cock stuffed inside of me, as he finds his own release while fucking me through mine.

Spent and panting, I collapse on top of him, clammy forehead pressed to a clammy neck. Instantly, strong arms wrap around my middle, calloused hands stroking the length of my spine, one of them taking a detour to trace the outline of the raised patch of skin on my shoulder. My fingers find a similar mission, my thumb brushing over the healed wound on his chest.

Healed, but prominent. Raised, discolored skin that still strikes fucking fear in my heart—that I don’t think ever won’t. A couple of years could pass rather than a couple of months, a couple of decades, a couple of damn centuries, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look for more than a few seconds at the oh-so-stark reminder that I almost lost the man I love before he even really knew I loved him.

Swallowing the fear that never quite recedes, I kiss the scarred skin lightly before rolling off of Finn. Hissing as he slips out of me, I shiver as sticky fluid drips down my thighs—I seriously consider rolling back on him, but I don’t have time for that. Not today. I’ve got shit to do today, shit Finn knows about.

Yet as I move to the edge of the bed and reach down for the pajama top strewn on the floor, he still slinks those arms around my waist again, stopping me from standing.

“Finn,” I reprimand, half-hearted because it’s extremely hard to chastise a man when he’s ducking beneath my t-shirt to kiss the delicate skin over my ribs. “Baby, I gotta go.”

He fuckingharrumphs.

Huffing hot air against me, he retreats, but it’s fleeting. More of a relocation, really. Those sweet, tempting kisses climb up my arms while his fingers drift down, and I’m so distracted by teeth nipping at my collarbone, that I don’t notice him fiddling with my hand—I don’t notice an unfamiliar weight on one of my fingers until I happen to glance down and see a ring sliding over my knuckle.

“Congratulations on three months sober, my love.”

Like it always does, even after so many days of hearing it every day, my breath catches at that word. That lovely word, that terrifying emotion—two things that definitely grip me at the sight of an ebony, whittled ring that fits perfectly on the fourth finger on my left hand.

I blink. “I’m more of a princess cut girl.”

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