Page 48 of The Seducer
“Good, so maybe you want to stop clinging to me.”
That only made me snuggle closer up against him. “You have nothing to worry about,” I said softly. “I’m not falling in love with you. I’m just healing you a bit by offering you the warmth and human connection you’ve been missing.”
“Great, but can you do it from your own side of the bed?” Finn said and tried to move away from me. “I’m not very comfortable with you this close.”
“Just relax,” I whispered.
Finn snorted. “You tell that to my rock-hard erection.”
“It will go away if you ignore it, won’t it?” I said.
“Uh-huh, but it would go away faster if you just jerked me off or something.”
A chuckle erupted from me. “Nice try, Finn. I don’t even think you have an erection and I’m not looking down to see if you’re right. You’re just saying it to get me to leave you alone because it freaks you out to be this close to me.”
“You don’t need to look down,” Finn said with mischief in his voice. “Just search for my erection with your hand and when you find it, stroke it a little, will you?”
“Good night, Finn.” I said. “I’m on to you. I know something bad happened in your past and when you’re ready to tell me about it, I’m ready to listen.”
Finn tensed up and stopped breathing for a few seconds, “You don’t know anything about me,” he muttered.
“I’m an empath and that means I listen to more than your words.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I listen to your tone, your body movements, your eyes, your subtle facial expressions. I interpret your silence. I can hear everything you don't say in words,” I explained.
“Oh yeah? That’s funny, because I’m the same,” Finn said quickly. “With me it’s all about people’s hands though. You can tell everything from a man’s hands, really.”
I lifted my eyebrows. “I didn’t know that.”
“Yes, for instance if his hands are around your throat he's angry.” Finn chuckled but it was a hollow sound that didn’t fool me.
Karma was working her magic. Finn’s armor of humor was wearing thin. I knew in my heart that it didn’t matter that I couldn’t replicate the exact same type of fear that I’d endured in the Northlands. Finn was experiencing a different kind of fear. He was used to suppressing bad memories and drowning them in alcohol. With me, he was forced to be still long enough for his past to catch up to him.
If only I knew what happened to him so I could help him. Listening to the steady rhythm of Finn’s guarded heart, I thought about his warning not to fall in love with him. It was a silly thing for him to say since falling in love was a rare concept in this day and age. The chances of two people as different as Finn and me falling in love had to be a statistical impossibility.
I lay awake reflecting, analyzing, and probing at my wounded ego when a disturbing thought came up.
Was I using Karma as an excuse to soothe my own ego?
I’d told myself I was going through this ordeal to help Finn, but was that the truth? What if these five days were about making me feel good about myself? Studying history, I’d learned of monks who would pray for the soldiers who slaughtered their people, and after my time as a hostage, I’d kept thinking about stories of prisoners being bigger people, forgiving their prison guards, and I’d wanted to be like them.
Did that mean I was using Finn to boost my own ego?
My inner balance was out of whack around this man and my thought processes blurred. In the end, I concluded that even if my ego played a part in it, Finn was still better off with my forgiveness than without it.
CHAPTER 15
Confessions
Finn
I woke up to an empty bed and a delicious smell of pancakes. The knots had been loosened enough that I could pull my arms and legs free of the ropes, and I sat up running my hands through my hair and stretching my arms.
It had been a long time since I had woken up so well rested. I didn’t remember having a single nightmare either. At first, Athena’s closeness had made it hard to fall asleep, but somehow I had managed to drift off.
“You’re being too hard on yourself, Hans.” The sound of Athena’s low voice from downstairs reached me. “You are certified and that’s all that matters.”
