Finn fixes me with those blue-black eyes.
“He doesn’t deserve you.” He looks back over the Mystic. “And neither do I. I know it’ll be disruptive for your brother, but after the election we should move him to a safer place. Out of town.” His breath catches. “And you too, Sasha. I don’t want to tip him off yet—he’ll lash out against the staff and I know you don’t want that. But after the election, if things go well, they’ll have protection and if they don’t go well, my brother and I can convince him it’s bad for business to hurt you, and his pride will be assuaged enough by your defeat to let it go.”
I have some other ideas, but I don’t need to share them. Not yet.
“It’d be a shame to waste a perfectly good Saturday,” I say. “Do you want to take a longer walk?”
He strokes my hair gently.
“I’d love that.”
18
Finn
I expected to feel like shit after revealing that terrible story to Sasha, but I should’ve known better. Even after everything she’s been through, after everything I’d put her through, she extended her gentle kindness even to me.
Even though I’m far from deserving.
And I’ll do whatever it takes to protect her from my father.
She lets me hold her hand as we walk along the river. It’s honestly not a place I’ve explored very much, and I’m happy to follow her wherever she wants to go. She takes us to a little park behind a shopping center. It’s a marshland that acts as drainage for the river, and I bet it’s beautiful in the spring.
Or it will be when we clean up the river.
“Was your father always like that?” I ask. “It’s okay if you don’t want to answer.”
“He’s been like this since I’ve known him,” she says. “My mother said he changed after his injury. He didn’t want to do anything other than play hockey. He couldn’t let go of that identity and just got more bitter as the years went on. I think he was devastated when my mother died but didn’t see his part in it at all.”
“That’d be a hard thing to face,” I say.
“Yeah. I don’t expect him to change for the better, but sometimes I wish he’d at least recognize what a good kid Benjamin is.”
“He is a good kid,” I say. “And you’re a wonderful woman. I’d say he should be proud except he doesn’t deserve any credit for the person you are.”
She smiles at me and I point to a rusty old swing set. The swings are still in place.
“It’ll probably scream like a banshee,” she says.
“Well if I sit on it, sure. But not you.”
The chains creak when she sits on the u-shaped plastic seat but don’t give more than the usual groan as I push her gently a few times.
“My father wanted to marry another woman,” I say. “My sister Siobhan told me. She found out over the summer.”
Sasha digs the heels of her boots into the crusty snow under the swing and turns to look at me.
“What?”
“He was in love with a woman named Kathleen, but she didn’t feel the same way. Married another man and my father hated him and his family ever since. He convinced my brothers and I to hate his family too. And I did. I still do in some ways. It’s hard to lose that programming.”
“Is that why he’s such a dick?” she asks.
Jesus. I let out a loud laugh. “No. He’s always been a dick. That’s probably why Kathleen married Murphy Doyle instead. Knew she’d have kinder children. Siobhan’s dating their son Kieran.”
“Are your parents okay with that?” she asks.
“They don’t love it, but as much as my father hates Murphy Doyle for beating him, the Doyles are a very powerful family in their own right. And he loves my sister. He knows she’ll be happy with Kieran.”
I hate to admit it. All of it.
“And his family?”
“Mother’s long gone. Father’s on his way out too.”
“I see.”
Does she understand why I’m telling her this? I care about this woman. But even if she gives me a chance and things work out between us, it’ll be a difficult road. I won’t ask her yet, though. She needs more time. And I have a lot to prove by her.
She moves off the swing and takes my hand. We walk back toward the river. She stops me at the edge of the playground.
“Finn. I need to ask you something, and I need you to tell me the truth. Do you promise to do that?”
“I’ll never lie to you again, Sasha. Not directly, not by omission, not at all.”
What could be on her mind? A million possibilities run through mine.
“Did you honestly have sex with me because you wanted me, or because you wanted something from me?”
The vulnerability in her eyes. I want to be someone worthy of this woman.
“I wanted you,” I say, honestly. “Did I go into this thinking I’d use my masculine charms on you to get my way? Yes.”
She rolls her eyes at that and I love her for it.
“But it turns out I was seduced by your kindness and your beauty. I don’t know how you can’t see how beautiful you are, Sasha. I wanted you so much it scares me. I haven’t really had the connection between sex and the feelings part since, well, what happened when I was younger. But something’s different with you, and I honestly am terrified by it. Sex has always been casual for me until now.”
Fear is not something that’s easy for a man like me to admit. But I owe this to Sasha.
Her fingertips are on the front of my jacket and she’s staring up at me, trying to assess whether I’m being honest or not.
“I know it must sound pathetic to you,” she says. “I don’t mean to sound overly sentimental. But I didn’t want my first time to be a transaction.”
“Mine was,” I say. She cringes and starts to apologize.
“No,” I say. “Don’t apologize. I’m saying I didn’t want that for you. It’s not what happened. I promise.”
I wish I could say I’d been as kind to some of the other women I’d slept with, but I hadn’t. And many of them hadn’t been kind to me. I’d had a lot of transactional sex, and I didn’t want that anymore.
“Was it okay?” she asks, her cheeks flushing.
My stomach tightens.
“It was incredible. I’m not just saying that.”
Was it incredible because it meant something, or because of how beautiful this woman in front of me is? It’s probably a combination.
I lean down and kiss her. The tip of her nose is cold. I pull her closer.
“Do you think maybe we could go back to your place?”
I’m taken aback by the offer. Hell yes we can.
“Are you sure?” I ask. I don’t want to think with just my dick here, though I very much want this woman in my bed, this time with me in it too.
She nods, that shy smile gracing her lips. “I’m sure.”
I take her home, and we’re barely through the door before she’s tugging at the zipper on my pants. I pull off her shirt, desperate to have her gorgeous breasts in my hands again. I’m stronger than her by far, so while I have her clothes off in seconds, she’s still struggling with my belt.