He’s already shaking his head. “Sweetheart, you don’t need to be sorry for any of this. You can be upset.”
He’s right. But if I start to get upset, I’ll spiral, and who knows when I’ll stop or what I’ll stop on.
So, I deflect. “Did you just call me sweetheart again? I thought that was like a one-time thing.”
He shrugs. “You are my wife, though, so…” He jokingly grins.
Guess we’re both deflecting then.
“Even if I’m your wife, I do not ever want to be called sweetheart.” I reach for the bag of chips. ‘I hate vomit-inducing nicknames.”
He rests back on his hands. “I’m not surprised you’d say that, but, just so you know, you’re the kind of woman that guys are going to want to call baby and sweetheart and other cute nicknames.”
“No, I’m not,” I protest, then toss a chip at him. It pegs him in the head, and he chuckles. “Why would you say that?”
“Because it’s true.” He pops the chip I threw at him into his mouth, then offers me an apologetic look as he leans forward, bends one knee, and rests his arm on it. “I know you’re feisty. I know you pride yourself on being a touch badass. And you are those things. But you’re also beautiful, sweet, and really fucking alluring, and that will make a lot of guys fall for you, and that will make them want to, as you put it, use ‘vomit-inducing nicknames’ on you.”
So much of what he said has me squirming, starting with the fact that he pretty much declared he’s fallen for me, since he called me sweetheart. But he already declared that to me.
“River’s probably called you sweetheart,” he guesses, watching my reaction closely.
“He has a few times. He’s also called me baby,” I tell him uncomfortably. “But I chewed his ass out for doing it.”
“I bet he liked that.”
“Finn, don’t start with me.”
“What?” He bats his eyelashes at me.
I glare at him, but I’m not really upset. “This idea that you think River gets off on my feistiness.”
“River does get off on your feistiness. A lot of guys do,” he insists with a lazy shrug.
I kneel up on the bed. “Take that back.”
“Or what? You’re going to make me?” An amused dare glints in his eyes.
He doesn’t think I’ll do anything. Shows how much he knows about me.
In one swift movement, I’m straddling him and have him pinned down to the bed.
I grin cheekily at his astonished expression. “I fight northside, which is dirty as hell.”
He presses his lips together and takes a measured inhale through his nose. “You know, I could get you off of me if I wanted to.”
“Prove it.”
“Who says I want to?”
“Finn—”
I let out an embarrassing squeak as, in one swift movement, he grabs me by the hips, flips me over, and covers his body on top of mine. For a flash of a moment, I’m back in that room on that bed, being watched as Finn thrusts inside me…
“Shit.” Finn quickly scrambles off of me. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.” He reaches to touch me as I sit up, but then pulls back. “Are you okay?”
I wait for my breathing to even out before I answer. “I’m fine. I just had a flashback, but it has nothing to do with you. Just the moment.” I comb my fingers through my hair roughly. “I hate that your father and all of the society members watched us do that.”
He nods, staring down at his hands as he sits on the edge of the bed. “Me too.” He looks like a portrait of misery.
